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The Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation area is home to a great diversity of ecosystems and landscapes. Each year, the area experiences large-scale migrations of megafauna. Whilst rural communities in the Mucheni (Zimbabwe) and Simalaha (Zambia) Community Conservancies have distinct cultures and local governments, they depend on hunting and fishing for both food and income. Community conservancies are legally-recognised, geographically-defined areas that have been formed by communities that have united to manage and benefit from wildlife and other natural ressources.However, communities’ livelihoods are threatened by erratic rainfall, poor soils, and human–wildlife conflicts. The SWM Project in KaZa is promoting a [...]

The IPPC Strategic Framework for 2020-2030 defines priorities and actions of the global plant health community for the next decade. The strategic framework has been adopted by the fifteenth Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM-15) to support national plant protection organizations and overcome the emerging challenges linked to e-commerce, pest outbreak alert and response systems, climate change impacts on plant health, global reasearch coordination, and many others.

Pastoral systems have evolved to function with the natural environment and therefore with variability. By identifying variability as an entry point, this paper aims at (i) engaging FAO in the mainstreaming of pastoralism by establishing the understanding of pastoralism, and its systematic inclusion in the normal operations of FAO, and at (ii) presenting an evidence based narrative on pastoralism to a specialists’ audience. Two main points are made in this document: First, pastoral systems are emblematic of farming with nature. Second, pastoral systems make use of variability in inputs (the environment) by matching it with variability in their own operational [...]

This publication presents ten scalable intercultural collaboration experiences that demonstrate the importance, efficiency and effectiveness of working hand in hand with men, women and youth of indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean in the search for practical solutions developed from the synergy between ancestral knowledge and scientific and technological innovation.Indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants are two of the rural groups with the greatest potential to contribute to climate change mitigation in Latin America. Both groups are highly vulnerable to natural disasters and the effects of climate on agriculture and food, yet their ancestral knowledge and collective territorial [...]

In recent years, several major drivers have put the world off track to ending world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. The challenges have grown with the COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures. This report presents the first global assessment of food insecurity and malnutrition for 2020 and offers some indication of what hunger might look like by 2030 in a scenario further complicated by the enduring effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also includes new estimates of the cost and affordability of healthy diets, which provide an important link between the food security and nutrition indicators [...]

This publication provides an overview of the common and unique sustainability elements of Indigenous Peoples' food systems, in terms of natural resource management, access to the market, diet diversity, indigenous peoples’ governance systems, and links to traditional knowledge and indigenous languages. While enhancing the learning on Indigenous Peoples food systems, it will raise awareness on the need to enhance the protection of Indigenous Peoples' food systems as a source of livelihood for the 476 million indigenous inhabitants in the world, while contributing to the Zero Hunger Goal.In addition, the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016-2025) and the UN Food [...]

Human nutrition is vital for agriculture. Many smallholder farmers are food-insecure and suffer chronic or acute forms of malnutrition. This can permanently harm the physical and cognitive growth of children, while reducing productivity as household members are less able to carry out agricultural work.Agriculture is vital for human nutrition. Nutrition has long been considered mostly a health issue. However, agriculture plays an essential role in ensuring nutritional wellbeing not only for rural populations, but also for society as a whole.Beyond producing food in sufficient quantity, agri-food systems should also:    provide diversified, safe and nutritious foods;    improve rural incomes and resilience, [...]

Human population growth increases the demand for natural resources in many parts of the world. This has led to the degradation and fragmentation of wildlife habitats, with humans and livestock encroaching on natural habitats. Wildlife is increasingly competing with humans for limited natural resources resulting in an increase in human and wildlife conflicts (HWCs). These conflicts also contribute to the increased risk for emerging infectious disease transmission. FAO’s work on HWC is an integral part of the Wildlife and Protected Areas Management Programme, and it aims at contributing to the achievement of the SDG2 on Zero hunger and SDG15 on Life [...]

Climate change represents an unprecedented challenge to the world’s biosphere and to the global community. It also represents a unique challenge for plant health. Human activities and increased market globalization, coupled with rising temperatures, has led to a situation that is favourable to pest movement and establishment. This scientific review assesses the potential effects of climate change on plant pests and consequently on plant health. The evidence assessed strongly indicates that climate change has already expanded some pests’ host range and geographical distribution, and may further increase the risk of pest introduction to new areas. This calls for international cooperation and [...]

Soil pollution is invisible to the human eye, but it compromises the quality of the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe and puts human and environmental health at risk. Most contaminants originate from human activities such as industrial processes and mining, poor waste management, unsustainable farming practices, accidents ranging from small chemical spills to accidents at nuclear power plants, and the many effects of armed conflicts. Pollution knows no borders: contaminants are spread throughout terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and many are distributed globally by atmospheric transport. In addition, they are redistributed through the global [...]