With the world’s population larger than ever, and still growing rapidly, more nutritious foods need to be produced worldwide, while also minimising the impact on the environment. The food produced for us moves along a complex value chain to reach the mouths of consumers, while providing livelihoods for many millions...

Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a tool for fostering a new paradigm in natural resources management. Combined with an Adaptive Collaborative Management (ACM) approach, in community-based fire prevention and peatland restoration, PAR facilitates transformative change through a simultaneous process of research and taking action, linked together by critical refl ection....

It was another hot and humid day, another power cut, the generator groaning in the background. Fans were spinning and pumping hot air around as the A/C didn’t work with the generator. I looked around the office, everyone seemed bored, scrolling through Facebook, chatting occasionally. I felt sad that there...

A survey on the diversity of bees and wild pollinators and the status of the bee industry was conducted in the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam. The data were made available to the respective National Coordinators (NC) for the Management of Animal Genetic Resources and the Food and Agriculture Organization...

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), through its Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD), kicked off a two-week training course on animal quarantine management in Sing District, a border area between Lao People’s Democratic Republic and China. The training course aimed to accelerate safer cattle...

It was the monsoon of 2019 when Stefan and I set forth on our agrobiodiversity hunt into the dense forest and other food production systems of Umsawwar community in Meghalaya. Kong Therisa Nongrum and Kong Angela Nongrum, who are custodian farmers from the community, volunteered to lead us on this...

I spent my summer vacations at my grandma’s after my 6th-grade examinations. Grandma lives in a small village in Kerala in India. It was always fun to be at her place, spending my days playing, helping in the kitchen and feeding the cows. I rarely visited grandma every year as...

Oyster farming can help preserve mangroves, said Khadim Tine at FAO’s Science and Innovation Forum debate on addressing climate challenges. An interview with this oyster farmer from Senegal, who is actively involved in efforts by the global fish value chain development program FISH4ACP to make Senegal’s oyster more productive and...

Recent global crises have led to diverse impacts across the world’s low- and middle-income regions, reflecting local conditions and differing policy responses. These effects are often compounded by more local shocks and crises, including prolonged conflict and violence, natural disasters, and fragile economic and governance systems. This section examines the...

In this study, we assessed the PPR disease status, its economic cost, the financial viability of vaccination, and the perspectives of field veterinarians on the PPR vaccination programme implemented in Karnataka state, India. In addition to secondary data, cross-sectional surveys undertaken during 2016–17 (survey I) and 2018–19 (survey II) from...

This is a literature review on land use and integrated land use management systems in Uzbekistan. The review aims to synthesize and examine the state of knowledge and the scope for establishing various integrated resource and land use management strategies such as types of agroforestry systems and integrated pastoral management...

Mitigadaptation, tree-based synergy between the global climate change mitigation and adaptation agendas, has been slowly emerging in the 30 years of climate science–policy interaction with its various ups and downs, false starts and ever-increasing urgency of bending the climate curve. The potential contribution of agroforestry to the climate change mitigation...

Cassava has become a ‘must have’ crop for many Cambodian smallholders; yet, the market is volatile and yields are uneven. Drawing on long-term fieldwork in Kampong Thom and Ratanakiri provinces, we analyse how farmers cope with volatility. We argue that multiple pathways have emerged: some farmers have ceased producing cassava;...

Located in Central Asia, Mongolia is the most sparsely populated fully sovereign country in the world. Landlocked and far from the sea, the vast grazing lands and grassy steppe of Mongolia have for centuries been a heartland of nomadic animal husbandry. About 73 percent of agricultural land is pastureland used...

Hos Salop’s days always began very early. She would cook breakfast for her husband and her three-year-old grandchild before working on her family farm in the village of Pongro in northwest Cambodia. She collected vegetables, fed the chickens and a pig, cleaned her house and dropped her grandchild off at...

Agroecology is an integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and socialconcepts and principles to the design and management of food and agricultural systems.It seeks to optimize interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment, whiletaking into account the social aspects that need to be addressed for a sustainable and equitable food system. Natural Farming...

A One Health cross-sectoral surveillance approach was implemented to screen biological samples from bats, pigs, and humans at high-risk interfaces for zoonotic viral spillover for five viral families with zoonotic potential in Viet Nam. Over 1600 animal and human samples from bat guano harvesting sites, natural bat roosts, and pig...

This report outlines the conceptual framework for sand and dust storms (SDS) hazard risk and vulnerability assessment and mapping in agriculture and provides the elements as part of SDS contingency planning process in agriculture in Mongolia. Its main purpose is to provide an applicable procedure to reduce SDS risk and...

Correction: The original version of this story had a headline stating the E.U. joined South Pacific groups. The Seychelles Fishing Authority (SFA) and Sustainable Indian Ocean Tuna Initiative (SIOTI) are both based in the Indian Ocean, not the South Pacific.  The Seychelles Fishing Authority (SFA), Sustainable Indian Ocean Tuna Initiative (SIOTI),...

In a chronically dry region of Kenya, outside Nairobi, women are becoming farmer scientists, working with CIFOR-ICRAF researchers to find ways to make the often-parched soil produce food for their families and the market. The women are testing different types of mulch to see which works best in their difficult conditions. Their next...