News archive 2012

Global food prices have dropped sharply in May due to generally favourable supplies, growing global economic uncertainties and a strengthening of the US dollar. The FAO Food Price Index averaged 204 points and was 9 points down from April, the lowest level since September 2011 and about 14 percent below its peak in February 2011.

Croplands in Niger and Mali are at imminent risk from Desert Locust swarms that are moving southward from Algeria and Libya. Groups of locusts have recently been found in northern Niger, and locust-control efforts are being hindered by continued insecurity in the region.

Governments need to play a more active role in support of smallholders if they are to become productive enough to help feed a growing world population, according to FAOs 119-nation Committee on Commodity Problems CCP. Widespread adoption of productivity-enhancing technology is unlikely unless greater attention is given to the incentives and constraints facing different categories of smallholders.

FAO and Sweden’s International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) have signed a $10.8 million Contribution Agreement aimed at improving the quality of FAO’s assistance to distressed populations in several high-priority countries and regions.

Sustainable development cannot be realized unless hunger and malnutrition are eradicated, FAO said in a policy document prepared for the Rio+20 Summit to be held in June in Rio de Janeiro.

The cooperative model offers unique solutions to “free people from hunger and poverty in a globalized world in which crises, including climate change, touch everyone”, President of Costa Rica Laura Chinchilla said today in a speech at FAO.

A new online data portal developed by FAO and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis aims to help unlock the planet's potential to feed a rapidly growing population. The new portal is a planning tool designed to identify opportunities for increasing global food production while maintaining natural resources base and facing the challenge of climate change.

On a visit to drought-stricken Chad, Spanish football star Raúl González added his voice to urgent calls for funding to prevent a full-blown food and nutrition crisis in the Sahel region of West Africa, where over 17 million people are at risk of hunger and more than 1 million children under five face acute malnutrition.

FAO and Brazil's Serviço Social da Indústria have signed a new partnership agreement that will seek to adapt a successful Brazilian food educational program to other countries of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as to Africa, with an eye to improving household nutrition and reducing food waste. Established in 2008, SESI's Programa Cozinha Brasil teaches people how to prepare affordable, nutritious meals while at the same time avoiding food waste in the kitchen.

FAO's Regional Conference for the Near East hascalled for a 50 percent reduction of food losses and food waste in the region in order to improve regional food security. Annual losses in grains are estimated at more than 16 million tonnes across the region. Some 15 percent of vegetables and legumes and more than 30 percent of perishable foods such as fruit, vegetables, dairy products, meat and fish are also wasted annually.