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Bioeconomy is the production, utilization and conservation of biological resources, including related knowledge, science, technology, and innovation, to provide information, products, processes and services across all economic sectors aiming toward a sustainable economy’. Its cross-cutting nature offers a unique opportunity to comprehensively address interconnected societal challenges such as food and nutrition security, fossil-resource dependence, natural resource scarcity and climate change, while achieving sustainable economic development.However, developing bioeconomy as such is not sustainable per se. The development of an economy that is based on biomass resources faces several trade-offs. It is crucial that bioeconomy development does not hamper but rather strengthens [...]

The Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) Programme is the first international initiative to tackle the wild meat challenge by addressing both wildlife conservation and food security. This African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) initiative is funded by the European Union through the 11th European Development Fund (EUR 45 Million). The SWM Programme mobilizes an international group of partner organizations with strong expertise and experience in wildlife conservation, food security and policy development. It is implemented through a consortium partnership, which includes the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Wildlife [...]

Unhealthy diets now pose a greater risk to morbidity and mortality than unsafe sex, alcohol, and drug and tobacco use combined. They are at the root of the global obesity and diet-related non-communicable disease (NCD) pandemic. The ways of food production that lead to these unhealthy diets also pose a major threat to climate stability and ecosystem resilience, and constitute the most important driver of environmental degradation and natural resources depletion.In the short term, there is little that we can do to curb the global demand for food and other products that depend on biological resources. Demand will continue to [...]

The content of this guide is twofold: to describe the most important weather and agroclimatic products that are available by the National Meteorological Service (NMS) and to identify the most important needs of farmers concerning climate information. Special consideration will be given to the local knowledge used by rural farmers, too often neglected, but a key factor to their ability to cope with climate variability and change.An additional objective of this guide is to improve communication among the NMS staff, in particular, meteorologists and agrometeorologists and to encourage Agro-Pastoral Field School (APFS) trainers and facilitators to be more aware of [...]

The cultivation of diverse farmers’ varieties/landraces, which tend to be well-adapted and suited to local production systems, confers increased resilience for crop production. Farmers’ varieties/landraces are also potential sources of traits for crop improvement, especially for developing varieties tolerant to biotic and abiotic stresses and for incorporating farmer-preferred traits. Unfortunately, many of these genetic resources have been replaced by modern cultivars in recent decades, resulting in a reduction in the total number of different varieties grown and/or loss of heterogeneity. Such losses make farming systems less resilient, especially to shocks from abiotic and biotic stresses. These guidelines, intended as reference [...]

A single-stop shop for good practices for sustainable banana production and trade. This portal has been provided in response to high demand from the industry stakeholders.

The way food systems have evolved over past decades means that they now face major risks, which in turn threaten the future of food systems themselves. Food systems have seriously contributed to climate change, environmental destruction, overexploitation of natural resources and pollution of air, water and soils. Despite the global average improvement in calorie production and major development of the food and agricultural product markets, huge inequalities in food access and repartition of the added value have emerged, leading to new serious nutritional and social problems. Based on a review of the most recent scientific knowledge, this report emphasizes Low-Income [...]

Well-performing CBF has the potential to rapidly restore forests in ecological terms and scale up sustainable forest management to the national level, while improving local livelihoods of billions of the most marginalized people around the world. The purpose of this framework is to facilitate assessment of the extent of CBF, the status with regards to the enabling conditions, and the impact of CBF on forests and local livelihoods at the country level. Thus, this assessment framework can serve to provide important insights into the successes, as well as the continued shortcomings of CBF at the country level. Also available in Spanish [...]

This report summarizes the state of biodiversity for food and agriculture in Near East and North Africa based on the information provided in country reports submitted to FAO as part of the reporting process for The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture.  

This publication brings together FAO’s current data on climate change and proposes actions to promote sustainable agriculture and food security, including tools and methodologies to support countries’ climate commitments and action plans. Also available in Spanish and Mandarin.