In the context of the 2014 International Year of Family Farming (IYFF), FAO has joined the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) to launch an awareness campaign targeted at farmers’ organizations and the rural population. The main objective is to use community radio as a platform to share information with the farming community and involve them further in the discussion regarding the key role that family farming plays in economic and social development. The campaign was launched in Montreal on 27 January and is set to continue throughout the entire 2014. It will consist of a series...

The  global campaign against hunger launched by the Caritas confederation is an important contribution to raise awareness of the plight of millions of hungry people around the globe and to work towards the elimination of hunger, said Marcela Villarreal, Director of FAO's Office for Partnerships, Advocacy and Capacity Development. The campaign ‘One Human Family, Food for All’ was launched in Rome with a video message of Pope Francis. In his message, the Pope said that “We are facing a global scandal of around one billion people who still suffer from hunger today. We cannot look the other way. The food that...

Civil society and FAO agreed on improved space for dialogue and enhanced mechanisms to foster both closer partnerships and wider balanced representation in pursuit of the shared goal for eradicating hunger, poverty and malnutrition in Asia and the Pacific. Despite important progress obtained over the years, today’s world continues to face serious problems of poverty, hunger and malnutrition. CSOs play a crucial role in food security and poverty reduction is several areas: from policy dialogue and discussions on substantive matters to programme and project design and implementation. A CSO/FAO consultation in Bangkok on 20 and 21...

FAO and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) have agreed to strengthen ties, using food as a bridge to improve cross-cultural relations and promote shared prosperity. At a signing ceremony Friday at FAO’s New York office, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva and UN High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations, H.E. Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) formalizing the new partnership. “A hungry world is not a peaceful world,” declared the FAO Director-General. “Sustainable food production bolsters not only food security, but also human security in all its forms.” Food also brings people together, added...

Cape town, South Africa, 08 November 2013 (FAO) - The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) jointly with the World Rural Forum (WRF), the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) and the World Farmers Organization (WFO) organized an African Regional Dialogue in Cape Town from 6 to 7 November 2013 to enhance national and regional discussions on family farming and smallholder farming (including agriculture forestry, fisheries and livestock). In a world that has an estimated population of 7 billion, where almost 1 billion people are undernourished (of which 239 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa), the African continent is faced with...