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 …
A devastating disaster hits a longstanding Asian dictatorship. The crisis is compounded by failed economic policies and conflicts with neighbors. The world stands ready to help, but the regime dithers and aid goes undelivered. Even information on the catastrophe is scarce thanks to a media blackout, government propaganda and denial. …
The current food crisis has been largely policy-driven, which is probably good news because it means that policies can also reverse the process. THIS is not a sudden and unexpected crisis: the signs have been around for some time now. Even though international bureaucrats have been referring to the current …
Blame your biofuel fixation, not India and China, Bush is told LOGIC and empirical facts do not necessarily form a part of United States President George W. Bush's assertions. Five years ago, he went to war against Iraq to unearth weapons of mass destruction that weren't there. And now, in …
The image of biofuels is rapidly tarnishing. Already under fire for displacing food production and tropical forests, they are now charged with marginalising poor rural women. In a report published on 21 April, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization concludes that women subsistence farmers will be evicted to make way …
The inflationary process at the international level is pushed by factors that cannot be easily controlled. THE chances are that people under the age of 30 in most countries of the world would never have experienced price rises of the extent and rapidity of the past year. Globally, the prices …
Enlarge view FAO predicts that foodgrain prices will rise for another 10 years. For most cereals supplies are much tighter than in recent years, while demand is rising for food as well as feed and industrial use. Stocks, which were already low at the start of the season, are likely …
When all goes well, thunderheads tower above India's southwestern state of Kerala in early June, drenching the region's vital rice fields and ensuring a bountiful harvest. From there the summer monsoon plods northward to soak the baking plains and irrigate vital breadbasket regions that feed 1.1 billion people before arriving …
Rising food prices across the world are generating a great deal of heat and dust. Some of that high-decibel debate about food versus fuel and end of an era when food prices were declining, has found its way into India as well. The worst hit here is, of course, the …
Ducks, rice and human beings, and not chickens are the "most significant factors' behind persistent outbreaks of bird flu, a new study has claimed. The study released by United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) found ducks, rice and people not chickens to be the "most significant factors' in the …
http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/home.html THE MIDDLE PATH There are many countries with malnourished and starving people; there are also some with overweight and obese people. This paradox has always dogged humankind. But the situation has assumed alarming proportions of late. With the Third World drawn willy-nilly into a globalization, the poor have become …
A deadly new and virulent fungus capable of affecting wheat crop has been detected in Iran, a major cereal growing area in West Asia. The fungus was previously found in East Africa and Yemen and has now moved to Iran, according to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The fungus is …
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has called on the oil-producing countries of the Middle East to invest more of their oil windfalls in developing agriculture in their region, in order to address the serious threat to food security posed by water scarcity and climate change. Jacques Diouf, FAO …
Rice prices have surged to a 20-year high in the latest sign of global food inflation, creating policy headaches in Asia, where more than 2.5 billion people depend on cheap and abundant supplies of the grain. Thai rice prices, a global benchmark, surged last week above the level of $500 …
RETAIL: The toy industry is changing as more people are asking for environment-friendly products. Laurie Hyman had a busy time in the New York Toy Show, the US industry's biggest annual event, with more than 1,200 exhibitors. Her start-up company, Green Toys, sells toy teacups, bowls and gardening tools that …
Nearly a quarter century after the 1984 World Conference on Fisheries Management and Development, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and 13 years after the formulation of the 1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, FAO will be organizing a global conference, in …
The United Nations has praised the "swift and comprehensive' measures taken by India to bring under control the "worst-ever' outbreak of bird flu in West Bengal, while urging the country to maintain vigilance in view of similar incidents reported in its neighbourhood. Culling The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation's veterinary …
Climate change could adversely impact the fish production globally, a latest report by United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) said. The report tilted
