News archive 2018

A sustainable bioeconomy "is foremost about nature and the people who take care of and produce biomass". This means family farmers, forest people and fishers, who are also "holders of important knowledge on how to manage natural resources in a sustainable way."

Do we still have time to save our planet? That’s the question asked in The State of the Planet, a joint collection of publications presented today by FAO and Spanish daily EL PAÍS to explain, in a pedagogic fashion, the great challenges that humanity faces in the coming decades.

The new sites in the landmark FAO GIAHS program are in China, Egypt, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Sri Lanka. Their primary production ranges from fruits, vegetables, salt and rice to silk, meat, tea and wasabi.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are launching an innovative joint project to rebuild livelihoods shattered by conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), by empowering women, supporting farmers and helping build peace between communities – all thanks to a €35 million contribution from the German people.

The body charged with keeping global trade in agricultural products safe and clean has adopted several new phytosanitary standards aimed at preventing destructive agricultural and environmental pests from jumping borders and spreading internationally.

This project, valued at approximately US$ 3.5 million (FJD 7 million), is funded by the European Union under an initiative which aims to reduce food and nutrition insecurity in countries and regions prone to El Nino induced vulnerabilities. It will be implemented by FAO in partnership with Fiji's Ministry of Agriculture.

The policy brief: Improving diets in an era of food market transformation: Challenges and opportunities for engagement between the public and private sectors, notes that interventions by the public sector alone will not be enough to address these issues.

FAO has urged governments and the private sector to improve labour safety in agriculture and forestry, sectors whose back-breaking jobs are among the most dangerous. In a bid to reduce health risks and even death, FAO has published two papers mapping ways to improve worker health and safety.

FAO presented a global overview of the benefits and risks of solar-powered irrigation at an international forum in Rome (12-13 April) hosted in partnership with Germany’s Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit and the International Water Management Institute.

12 April 2018, Nadi, Fiji – FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva today urged governments in the Asia and Pacific region to sharpen their focus on achieving Zero Hunger, and to do so by reducing rural poverty and adapting the agricultural sectors to climate change.