News archive 2016

Community-based forestry has shown itself to be a potent vehicle for promoting sustainable forest management, reducing poverty and generating jobs and income for rural communities, but unlocking its true potential will require greater support by governments through policy reforms and other measures.

High-level delegations of fisheries ministries from more than 50 countries are gathering in Agadir with industry players to discuss a sector that provides the world with 17 percent of its animal protein and developing countries with more export revenue than meat, tobacco, rice and sugar combined.

What do cucumbers, mustard, almonds and alfalfa have in common? On the surface very little. But there is one thing they share: they all owe their existence to the service of bees.

About 500 scientists, representatives of government, civil society, the private sector, academia, farmers' associations and cooperatives took part in the symposium discussing agricultural biotechnologies much broader than genetically modified organisms.

The meeting came following concerns expressed by civil society representatives that not all stakeholders were being given equal opportunity to have their voices heard at the symposium and that participation at the symposium was skewed in favour of the private sector.

Opening the FAO-hosted international symposium "The Role of Agricultural Biotechnologies in Sustainable Food Systems and Nutrition", Graziano da Silva stressed the need for "a broad portfolio of tools and approaches to eradicate hunger, fight every form of malnutrition and achieve sustainable agriculture."

FAO and Grupo PRISA, publisher of Madrid-based daily EL PAÍS, have agreed to collaborate to improve public awareness of critical issues related to hunger, agriculture and food systems.

The symposium focuses mainly on the broad range of biotechnologies that could result in yield increases, better nutritional qualities, and improved productivities of crops, livestock, fish and trees on which family farmers' food systems, nutrition and livelihoods depend.

Southern Africa is currently in the grip of an intense drought that has expanded and strengthened since the earliest stages of the 2015-2016 agricultural season, driven by one of the strongest El Niño events of the last 50 years.

Antimicrobial resistance" or AMR is “one of the greatest threats to public health worldwide” and calls for a globally coordinated effort to counter the risks it poses to food security, FAO Deputy Director General Helena Semedo warned European ministers of health and agriculture at a conference on antibiotic resistance in Amsterdam.