News
13/06/2018
Afrisoils launched on the margins of Global Soil Partnership Plenary Assembly
13 June 2018, Rome - The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its Global Soil Partnership launched today a new programme to boost soil productivity and reduce soil degradation for greater food and nutrition security in Africa.
The Afrisoils programme aims to increase soil productivity in 47 African countries...
31/05/2018
Burkina Faso and Mali are two of the six countries in the Sahel facing increasing hardships this year
31 May 2018, Rome - Sweden, through the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), will support drought-stricken farmers and herders in the Sahel, with a focus on Burkina Faso and...
30/05/2018
Incorporating biodiversity as a priority in agriculture can yield multiple benefits
FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva has called for transformative changes in how we produce our food, grounded in sustainable agricultural systems capable of producing healthy and nutritious food while simultaneously safeguarding the planet's biodiversity.
04/05/2018
6 reasons why soil pollution should not go unnoticed
Soil is a finite resource, meaning its loss and degradation is not recoverable within a human lifespan. Soils affect the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, our health and the health of all organisms on the planet. Without healthy soils we wouldn’t be able to...
28/04/2018
The first step in implementing the Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management
The Global Symposium on Soil Pollution (GSOP18) will take place at FAO headquarters from 2 to 4 May 2018. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization and its Global Soil Partnership (GSP), Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS), together with the Secretariats of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions, UN Environment...
12/04/2018
FAO offers guidance on how to make the most of innovation and guard against water waste
Solar powered irrigation systems are now an affordable and climate-friendly technology for both large and small-scale farmers in developing countries. But they need to be adequately managed and regulated to avoid the risk of unsustainable water use, FAO stressed in a new report published today.
Sharp and ongoing drops in the...
20/03/2018
New FAO study urges avoiding "mutual aggravation" of links between water scarcity and migration
Global water use has increased by a factor of six over the past century, twice the rate of population growth, and its scarcity is now a looming human challenge due to a host of factors ranging from climate change and pollution to lack of capacity and infrastructure.
In a video message...
15/03/2018
Asia hardest hit region, says report on the burden borne by poor farmers due to natural disasters
Natural disasters are costing farmers in the developing world billions of dollars each year, with drought emerging as the most destructive in a crowded field of threats that also includes floods, forest fires, storms, plant pests, animal diseases outbreaks, chemical spills and toxic algal blooms.
According to a new report from...
19/02/2018
Sustainable land and Water management key elements of new publication on landscape management for sustainable food and agriculture
The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established a vision for the future, which is as transformational as it is ambitious. They represent a determined agenda, intended to address an unprecedented confluence of pressures on human development and the global environment. Perhaps most importantly, the SDGs represent a strategy...
16/02/2018
Interview series from the World Agricultures Watch International Workshop “Understanding Farming Diversity for Better Policy-making and Project Targeting” 19-20 December 2017, IFAD Headquarters, Rome, Italy