FAO has renewed its partnership agreement with the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) - Organics International, extending the collaboration until 2024. The partnership, originally formalized in 2018, has provided a framework for working together to develop, promote and strengthen work to improve the livelihoods of populations living in rural areas, in particularly communities and households of smallholder farmers, forest dwellers and fishers and fish workers. Together, FAO and IFOAM have been working to ensure more inclusive food and agriculture systems at local, national and international levels through common actions to improve market access and value chains for small-scale...

FAO and the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) have renewed their collaboration for an additional three years, focusing on further strengthening cooperatives’ technical capacities.The partnership between these two organizations has been in place since 2018, helping to promote the role of cooperatives in achieving key aspects of FAO’s mandate, such as food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture. ICA, which represents and serves cooperatives worldwide, provides a global voice and forum for knowledge, expertise and coordinated action for and about cooperatives. The alliance works at the global and regional level to create the legislative environments that allow cooperatives to form...

The year 2021 marks the beginning of the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, and Food systems that are healthier, more sustainable and equitable are key to achieving many of the SDGS.COVID-19 also revealed how important resilience of food systems is. However, overall and beyond emergencies and shocks, food systems are unsustainable and it is fundamental that they be drastically transformed.A recent FAO survey has clearly demonstrated the enormous and active role that cities and local governments have played in attenuating the effects of the pandemic on the health and...

Rome - Today, on the occasion of the fourth observance of World Bee Day, FAO Director-General QU Dongyu highlighted the important role that bees and other pollinators play in ensuring ecosystems services, food security, nutrition, and livelihoods, at a high-level virtual gathering under the theme ‘Bee engaged - Build Back Better for Bees'. "The 2030 Agenda calls for the eradication of hunger and poverty" said the Director-General. "We need food systems that are more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable. Bees play a major role in that. They are important to our food security, nutrition and...

Rome – Consumers can be the “catalyst” to drive the transformation of agri-food systems, influencing how we produce and consume food in an increasingly digital world, said the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, today in a special address during the celebration of Consumers International’s 60th anniversary.  In his remarks, Qu congratulated Consumers International, a global federation of consumer groups, and called for even closer collaboration with FAO.  He stressed the need to promote healthy diets and to educate consumers enabling them to make healthier choices, to respect farmers’ work...