By engaging farmers, technical staff, and public institutions in capacity building and awareness raising, the project enhanced the recognition, prevention and control of tick-borne diseases (TBDs) and transboundary animal diseases (TADs) among stakeholders. Cattle vaccines were procured and administered, and materials on animal diseases were produced in English and IsiNdebele...

Farming the land as if nature doesn’t matter has been the model for much of the Western world’s food production system for at least the past 75 years. The results haven’t been pretty: depleted soil, chemically fouled waters, true family farms all but eliminated, a worsening of public health and...

Pacific Islands – Today, if you talk to farmers’ organisations, government agricultural officers or agricultural development practitioners in the Pacific, there is a good chance you are going to hear them talking about value chains. In fact, it is likely that you will also hear farmers, exporters, and agro-processors also...

A transition to an agriculture based on agroecological principles would provide rural families with significant socioeconomic and environmental benefits. If agroecology has such great potential to feeding the world, why it is not adopted more widely by farmers? Most research analyzing factorsneeded for scaling up agroecology focuses on the social...

Dairy farming is currently facing a number of challenges. On the one hand, the products have to meet high environmental standards and animal welfare requirements, on the other hand the market demands cheap products. Kirsten Wosnitza, who runs a farm of 120 dairy cows in Schleswig-Holstein with her husband Gerd...

From Capacity Development to Natural Resources Management, this catalogue summarizes the successful innovations for smallholder farmers. Accessible to all and illustrated, the technologies and techniques presented can help bring a real positive change for family farmers all around the world. The publication presents a set of eleven technologies and practices across...

This year’s World Food Day (WFD) slogan is Our Actions are our Future. A #ZeroHunger world by 2030 is possible. The theme calls for action across nations, continents, sectors and professions to get back on track and reverse negative trends caused by prolonged conflicts, climate change and economic slowdown. A...

Josef Plank, Secretary-General at the Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism, was invited by Copa and Cogeca at the European Farmers Congress 2018 to present the ambitions of the Austrian Presidency of the European Council on farming issues (UTPs, CAP.

Tales of desertification across the world’s drylands are a recurrent theme in policy discourse. This book takes issue with many of the assumptions around desertification, with cases ranging from Central Asia to West Africa to the Mediterranean to the American West. It is edited by Roy Behnke, an anthropologist with...

Copa-Cogeca together with the UECBV and APCPR organised a meeting in Bucharest aimed at increasing awareness and sharing good practices on biosecurity among European pigmeat farmers. As one of the countries that is most severely affected by African Swine Fever (ASF), Romania was the ideal place to host this first...

The emerging food sovereignty paradigm offers a viable alternative for food, farming and well−being in terraced landscapes and the territories they are embedded in. This paper first defines ‘food sovereignty’ and briefly describes the origins and history of this policy framework for food and agriculture. The second part of this...

This document represents an attempt by the Chair to capture the richness of the contributions presented during the Symposium by different stakeholders and experts, to be more fully registered in the full report of the Symposium to be prepared by FAO, and does not necessarily reflect the opinions and views...

Changes in farming and land-use practices over the last 60 years have resulted in a significant decline in overall agrobiodiversity. This decline in domesticated crop and livestock breeds, as well as edible wild plant and animal species, is occurring at an incredible rate.This paper focuses on the contributions that agroecology...

Nearly 80 percent of seasonal crop areas in the Near East and North Africa Region are rainfed, a system whose water source is highly variable, insufficient to satisfy the crop water demand, and often exposed to drought. These conditions make farming in rainfed areas highly risky and unpredictable, with negative...

Seeds, the beginning and the end of the food growing cycle. Generations of people using generations of seeds. Survival and culture intertwined. This video gives the viewer insight as to the role and importance of seeds for indigenous peoples and the part that their knowledge may play in the years...

This third progress report presents highlights of operational developments in the European Union’s (EU) external assistance concerned with nutrition and provides updates on progress towards its two commitments in nutrition: to support partner countries in reducing the number of stunted children under the age of five by at least 7...

La salud y el derecho a una alimentación adecuada son derechos que se encuentran avalados y secundados por numerosos tratados, acuerdos y jurisprudencia desde el nivel internacional hasta el local. Sin embargo, a pesar de los compromisos, nos encontramos ante una situación de emergencia debido al ininterrumpido aumento de la...

Maize is the predominant crop in Zambia, both in terms of production and consumption, and levels of crop diversity on Zambian farms tend to be very low. The country’s maize-centric food system contributes to poverty, malnutrition, and vulnerability to drought, pests and diseases. Growing a wider variety of nutritious crops...

The present report looks into the agricultural knowledge base in Europe, how it needs to adapt and how it can contribute to new challenges. Agricultural science being a “systems” science by nature, in order to act it must broaden its scope and become an efficient problemsolving tool. It also needs...

Romanian Rural Network News no.6/2018.  a