5 June 2023, Ankara – Abandonment or un-utilization of agricultural land is a common problem in many countries. Land abandonment undermines food security, results in lost economic opportunities, and can have a range of other negative socio-economic and environmental impacts. In order to mitigate and overcome the negative consequences of land abandonment, a project entitled “Enhancing agricultural land market development to...

31 May 2023, Tashkent – From 1 to 6 May 2023, the FRIENDS project team undertook a mission to Uzbekistan to evaluate capacity and training needs. The FRIENDS (Forest Restoration Improvement for Environmental Development and Sustainability in Central Asia) project aims to develop national capacities to restore large-scale forest and other wooded lands, and to enhance know-how to prevent degradation...

26 May 2023, Ankara – Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Regional Cooperation Centre for Sustainable Food Systems (BSEC-CSFS) has launched a dedicated website to promote the food systems transformation agenda in the BSEC region, and to contribute to building a network of food system professionals. The BSEC-CSFS website will serve as a platform for knowledge exchange and information...

24 May 2023, Baku, Azerbaijan – Wheat is the most cultivated food crop in the world. However, a number of biotic factors affect its productivity and production volume. One of these is rust disease caused by species of the fungus Puccinia spp. The disease is widespread in Central Asia and the Caucasus and many other parts of the world, and...

10 May 2023, Izmir, Türkiye – In order to assess the growing threat posed by wheat rust diseases to regional food security, experts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Türkiye, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, gathered in Izmir to attend a ten-day training workshop (1–10 May 2023) to evaluate options for monitoring, cooperation, integrated disease management and information exchange. The participants included representatives from...