Kazakhstan continued its pursuit of organic agriculture production, certification and marketing this week as it welcomed a group of FAO experts to Astana. FAO investment support officer Kairat Nazhmidenov, senior natural resources officer and key FAO expert in organic Nadia Scialabba, and organic legislation expert and legal consultant Raushan Zhazykbayeva were...

With consumer demand for organic foods on the rise, FAO is working with Central Asian countries to develop their capacities for organic agriculture. A three-day international conference on the topic opens here today, with leading experts and other players taking part. Organized by Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources in...

Viticulture, the science of growing grapes, dates back as far as 8 000 years in Armenia. The country has a favourable setting for grape production and it is a lucrative business even today. But not paying enough attention to preserving genetic resources and maintaining healthy vines could jeopardize future good prospects...

The Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources of the Republic of Uzbekistan in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN FAO) is organizing an International Conference on development of organic agriculture in Central Asia during 22-24 August 2017. The theoretical sessions of the Conference will be...

The Kick-off Meeting of the Regional Expert Advisory Working Group (Agro-Biodiversity in the SEE countries was held in the period 13th -14th, July 2017 in Skopje, Macedonia. The kick-off meeting served as a preparatory meeting for setting up the structure and technical framework of the Regional Expert Advisory Group on Agro-Biodiversity...

Raising awareness, understanding and interest in land consolidation is the objective of a nationwide campaign being conducted here by FAO and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Economy. Since the start of November, three public awareness workshops on land consolidation have been held, in the cities of Gostivar, Bitola and...

Four agricultural service cooperatives in the conflict-affected Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine today are receiving agricultural equipment for land cultivation – to improve production of cereal, forage, and oil-bearing crops. The distribution is the latest stage in FAO’s project to support farming cooperation in eastern Ukraine. A chronic lack of...

Mobile phones, satellites, radio, remote sensing, internet connection, Big Data – a non-exhaustive list tools that have revolutionized our lives in many ways. They could have the same effect on agriculture and food production. This is the rationale behind an FAO-organized regional e-agriculture forum that starts here today, targeting the countries...

Ministers of Agriculture and Food from South Eastern Europe (SEE), Heads of Delegations and representatives of the national bodies in charge of animal health, gathered on 25th of January 2017 in Podgorica at the extraordinary ad-hoc meeting organized under the joint auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development...

For centuries, rural people in Azerbaijan have produced honey. The country's mountainous regions allow for the production of high-quality, natural, mountain flora honey that has a high market value. Native Caucasian bees -- naturally resilient to the environment and to parasites -- make it possible to achieve good productivity rates. Today...

On the 6th September 2016, DG AGRI presented the Cork Declaration “A better life in rural areas”. The discussions organised with the stakeholders during this 2-day conference fed the final declaration in a bottom-up approach. For the moment, no real Action Plan for the implementation of the Cork Declaration has been...

Wheat is the world‟s most widely cultivated cereal. By 2050, global demand for wheat is projected to increase by 60%. In the CWANA region which ICARDA is tasked to serve, wheat is the basic staple and food security crop, contributing over 60% of people‟s daily calorific and protein needs. Due...

The International Conference on Research for Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions (ICRSDMR) is a scientific event for sharing and discussing methods, tools, results, applications, trends and challenges in research in mountain systems. This event was organized for the first time in Bragança by IPB-CIMO (and other institutions such as Embrapa,...

The CIHEAM Watch Letter n°38 in February 2017 on "Rural innovation and digital revolution in agriculture " wishes to provide a regional Mediterranean overview in terms of innovation in rural areas and the role of ICT in agriculture. This issue is resolutely prospective and rich in the presentation of various...

Euromontana is working hard to collect signatures for the 2016 European Charter for Mountain Quality Food Products. We recently created a Facebook page about the Charter. The page contains a link to sign the Charter and will be updated regularly with information about: mountain products, the progress of the Charter, examples of the use of the mountain product...

Brief overview of the region (Europe and Central Asia), a breef introduction to the FAO Regional Initiative on Smallholders and Family Farms and the need to develop further approaches to community development planning.

A simple, innovative app could become a game-changer for Kazakhstan’s dairy industry – improving the efficiency of the raw milk supply chain. FAO and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) have trained milk procurement managers with Kazakhstan’s top dairy companies on Collect Mobile – an open source application for...

Six months after the Cork 2.0 event and the publication of the Declaration “A better life in rural areas”, Copa and Cogeca (farmers and agri-cooperatives), CEJA (young farmers) and CEPF (forest owners)  organised a joint event in Brussels, on March 22nd, 2017. The event, entitled “Cork 2.0 Declaration – Acting...

Organic farming is not a new method for Macedonian farmers. It dates back years to when every family owned their own land for crops and produced food for their personal needs. Commercial agriculture that uses chemical fertilisers has emerged in the last century and has overtaken the market, but trends...

STACCATO is a BiodivERsA funded EU project which will focus on the analysis and evaluation of Ecosystem Services (ESS), both in isolation and in concert, and their sensitivity to land use patterns in agriculturally dominated landscapes. The starting point of STACCATO is based on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA). For the...