The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2020 (SOCO 2020) aims to discuss policies and mechanisms that promote sustainable outcomes – economic, social and environmental – in agricultural and food markets, both global and domestic. The analysis is organized along the trends and challenges that lie at the heart of global …
The international prices for agricultural commodities continued to decline in April and abundant inventories will offset any pressure from the slight reduction in global harvests expected this year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Thursday. Worldwide cereal production will likely decline by 1.5 percent from last year's record-breaking …
Expanding agriculture is the biggest driver of deforestation around the world, and giving local residents greater control over forested land leads to better environmental management, forest researchers said on Wednesday. An estimated 1.2 billion people rely on forests for their livelihood, including about 60 million indigenous people who are almost …
A Kenyan conservationist has been awarded a £50,000 (Sh7.3 million) environmental prize for raising awareness of the importance of pollinators. Dino Martins received the Whitley Gold Award from HRH Princess Royal at the Royal Geographical Society, London on Wednesday. Martins was honoured for helping local communities adopt sustainable farming practices. …
The UN aid agencies said nearly 11 million people in Yemen are facing severe food insecurity due to the current fighting in the country, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that nearly 10.6 million Yemenis are now severely …
The world can definitively stamp out a plague that devastates sheep and goats, freeing hundreds of millions of rural families from one of the major risks to their food security and livelihood. FAO and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) will outline a strategy for the total eradication of …
New report explores uses of natural heat for food production and processing - Geothermal energy, the flow of heat energy radiating from the earth's core, provides unique opportunities for cost efficient, sustainable food production and processing in developing countries, says a new report published by FAO today. In some developing …
Bamako/Rome — 33,000 families to benefit from new agricultural production rehabilitation programme - World Bank supporting activities The government of Mali and FAO have launched the implementation phase of a $5 million project aimed at restoring the livelihoods of households affected by the armed conflicts and climate change in the …
Vegetation cover has increased globally by the equivalent of four billion tonnes of carbon since 2003 thanks to some luck and aggressive afforestation, says a new analysis of satellite data. Global warming would be happening faster if these emissions were not captured by the increased vegetation growth. The Australian-led study …
Britain has given Zimbabwe $72 million to help increase food production by rural farmers over the next four years, as the southern African country faces the prospect of poorer harvests this year due to inadequate rains. Once the bread-basket of the region, Zimbabwe has since 2000 struggled to feed its …
Investing in insurance programs for poor farmers today could save tens of billions of dollars in coming decades as climate change upsets growing patterns and makes harvests fail, U.N. officials said ahead of next week's conference in Japan on disaster preparedness. An investment of $350,000 in disaster prevention for farmers, …
Infighting between competing government departments has weakened the world's ability to tackle droughts, a U.N. official said as scientists meet at an international conference in Mexico this week to discuss desertification. Most governments do not have a separate ministry to handle issues related to water, droughts or land management, said …
Satellite images suggest tropical forests from the Amazon to the Philippines are disappearing at a far more rapid pace than previously thought, a University of Maryland team of forest researchers say. The annual rate of deforestation from 1990 to 2010 was 62 percent higher than in the previous decade, and …
Reducing consumer food waste could save the global economy up to $300 billion annually by 2030 as one third of all food produced worldwide ends up being discarded, a research group said on Thursday. Globally, the food wasted by consumers is worth $400 billion a year, and this could jump …
There’s no other way to put it: Cutting down tropical forests is disastrous. The lush plant life in these areas sequesters huge amounts of carbon, pulling it out of the atmosphere to fuel plant growth. Chopping down a rainforest releases carbon back to the atmosphere, worsening global warming. But at …
ROME – The world’s diet has deteriorated substantially in the last two decades, a leading nutrition expert said on Monday, citing one of the largest studies available on international eating habits. Poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are seeing the fastest increases in unhealthy food consumption, while the situation …
Too little is being done to control the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, which has infected 50 people in Saudi Arabia so far this month, the World Health Organization has warned. The rising number of cases in health-care facilities indicates current infection-control measures are not being implemented, it says. …
Gairaha is not a place that usually attracts media attention. But something unusual was under way as the new year entered its second week. On January 8, the village in Bangra in Uttar Pradesh's Jhansi district saw more than 10,000 farmers protesting at the local intermediate college. Incensed over the …
Vietnam launched here on Wednesday a national action plan to promote the Zero Hunger Challenge, an important initiative to remove famine raised by the United Nations (U.N.) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon since 2012. Speaking at the launching ceremony, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said in the past few decades, …
An agreement was signed on Wednesday between the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations and the government of Bangladesh for $ 20.14 million (approximately Tk 1.56 billion) to strengthen the enabling environment for food security and nutrition, reports UNB.Economics Relations Division (ERD) Senior Secretary Mohammad Mejbahuddin and …
Over 70% of wood harvested in forests is unaccounted for, causing huge losses of government revenue and driving some tree species to brink of local extinction There is a high demand for wood from indigenous tree species in the construction and furniture industries. Illegal logging gangs in Tanzania are smuggling …
