Throughout the world, hundreds of varieties of pulses are grown – from dried beans, such as kidney beans, lima beans, butter beans and broad beans, to chickpeas, cowpeas, black-eyed peas and pigeon peas. Although they vary in flavour, in colour, in size, their high nutritional value and important role in...

The 47th meeting of the Committee on World Food Security runs from 8-11 February

Global food prices rose in January for the eighth consecutive month, led by cereals, vegetable oils and sugar, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). FAO's Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly-traded food commodities and was released today, averaged 113.3...

The 34th session will take place from 1 to 5 February. The Committee on Fisheries is a subsidiary body of the FAO Council and was established by the FAO Conference in 1965.

OpEd by Guangzhou QU, Director, FAO New York. At a critical juncture when the world is striving to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 amid the haunting COVID-19 pandemic, I assumed my duty as Director of the FAO Liaison Office in New York. I took office on 1 January 2021,...

The upcoming United Nations (UN) Food System Summit in New York and the Pre-Summit in Rome were the focus of the first meeting of the Group of Friends of Food Security and Nutrition in 2021. The event, hosted by the Permanent Mission of Italy to the UN, and co-organized with...

Nairobi/New York/Rome, 19 January 2021 - A locust fighting force assembled by countries in East Africa to combat an invasion of the crop-devouring pest is at risk of seeing its activities grind to a halt as funding to sustain its operations dries up, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned...

 The FAO Director-General QU Dongyu today held a meeting with all senior managers of the UN agency, including FAO representatives (FAORs) to about 130 countries, to present the Organization’s priorities for 2021. Opening the fourth meeting of its kind, with almost 200 participants, Qu highlighted that all the strategic decisions, transformative...

QU Dongyu joined President Macron and the Prince of Wales at the One Planet Summit.

Updated regularly, this is FAO's website on the ways the pandemic is affecting food and agriculture systems around the world.

Transformative change at the service of allby QU Dongyu, FAO Director-GeneralOnly a few weeks after assuming FAO’s leadership in 2019, I met the UN Secretary-General and promised that FAO will strengthen its role within the UN System as a dynamic member, trusted partner and professional knowledge organization. FAO has kept...

Happy holidays and a prosperous 2021!

The 75th session of the UN General Assembly adopted on 21 December two Second Committee resolutions whose process were supported by FAO together with the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs: Agriculture development, food security and nutrition and Eradicating rural poverty to implement the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development....

Mountains host about half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots and are home to 15 percent of the world’s population. Unfortunately, they are also currently under threat from climate change, overexploitation, invasive species, and pollution. As a result, the communities who live on the mountains are some of the world’s poorest...

There has never been a more urgent need to restore damaged ecosystems than now due to the rising impacts of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a monumental task and everyone has a role to play. Ecosystems support all life on Earth, and their restoration can create jobs,...

Soils are one of the main global reservoirs of biodiversity and the source of 95 percent of our food. Without maintaining soil health and biodiversity, we cannot end hunger. In 2014, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly designated 5 December as World Soil Day. The day marks the...

The FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, delivered a statement in a high-level virtual event commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). The event celebrated the Small Island Developing States (SIDS), their inhabitants and their contribution to advancing regenerative and synergistic development in the global agenda.  ...

The implications of agri-food systems transformation for the livelihoods of rural people in the COVID-19 era was the focus of a high-level event co-organized by FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), World Food Programme (WFP), and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), in collaboration...

In 2021, UN Secretary-General António Guterres will convene a Food Systems Summit as part of the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The Summit will launch bold new actions to deliver progress on all 17 SDGs, each of which relies to some degree on...

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (OHRLLS) held their second virtual coordination meeting on 1 December 2020. The meeting focused on opportunities for collaboration between the two...