Rose Ongalibang shows off the pinkish-purple powder in a small bag. “It’s taro flour,” explains the genial retiree at her home on Palau’s largest island, Babeldaob. With its distinctive heart-shaped leaves, taro is traditionally cultivated by Palauan women in plots of land around the shores of this tiny Pacific country. The...

Farmers choose different strategies to cope with disasters. The scientific information on what adaption strategies do farmers across different socio-economic and regional strata choose to cope with disasters can help policymakers to make informed farm-level support interventions. Odisha is a flood-prone state in eastern India. The flood adaptation strategy choices...

World Food Safety Day is celebrated annually on 7 June to draw attention and mobilize action to prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks and improve human health. Coordinated jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO), under the theme for this...

In 2020, China announced the successful completion of its poverty alleviation mission, noting that the focus of China’s poverty alleviation mission has shifted from eliminating absolute poverty to alleviating relative poverty. Due to global warming and frequent natural disasters, natural disaster shocks have seriously affected farmers’ livelihoods and aggravated relative...

Pashmina is one of the most expensive natural fabrics in the world, and yet the lives of those who produce this rare fibre in India is very tough. The Changpa of eastern Ladakh and western Tibet have for centuries supplied the fabled Kashmiri shawl industry with its essential raw material...

Poverty caused by disasters poses a great challenge to consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation. Livelihood resilience is the key factor for farmers to resist risks and get rid of poverty. Therefore, this study used the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) database. Firstly, we examined the impact of natural disasters...

Good laying queens are important to productive beekeeping. Although queens may be able to live for several years, it is to the beekeepers' advantage that their colonies possess good young queens. To ensure that they will have an ample supply of queens, many of them rear their own. The following...

In the framework of the Asia Pacific Symposium on Agrifood System Transformation that took place in Bangkok, Thailand, this hybrid side event – hosted on 6 October 2022 – fully aligns with the implementation of the new FAO Strategic Framework to support the 2030 Agenda through the transition to more efficient, inclusive,...

It has been claimed that Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), a burgeoning practice of farming in India based on low-inputs and influenced by agro-ecological principles, has the potential to improve farm viability and food security. However, there is concern that the success of the social movement fueling the adoption of...

Women and men play important roles throughout the fish value chain, and also for the conservation of aquatic resources. However, there is little recognition of women’s valuable contribution to the fisheries sector. Women glean and collect seafood from the mangroves. Women clean and process the fish. Women sell fish products...

Agroecology enables the improvement of agricultural production through the enhancement of local natural resources and traditional know-how. It contributes to maintaining biodiversity and restoring land in drylands, which are particularly threatened by global warming and food insecurity while contributing to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Within the framework of the AVACLIM project, the...

About the SAFE project The Sustainable Agriculture for Forest Ecosystems (SAFE) project is dedicated to the preservation of forests through the promotion of sustainable agri-food systems. SAFE operates in six countries – Brazil, Ecuador, Indonesia, Zambia, Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – supporting the transition to deforestation-free,...

'FAO in the Pacific: 2021 Annual Report' presents the results that FAO-led projects and programmes contributed to the timely and effective joint response by the United Nations family, governments and other partners under various thematic clusters including climate change, emergencies, fisheries and aquaculture. It also looks at longer-term gains made...

More than one billion people in the Asia Pacific region work in agriculture – from growing coffee in the Philippines, to harvesting rubber in Indonesia; from rice farming in Thailand to pepper production in Vietnam. This makes the sector one of the largest, and most dynamic in the world. Agriculture...

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has imposed stresses on the ability of food systems to deliver their primary functions: providing food security and nutrition to growing populations, supporting livelihoods for farmers, fishers and workers along the agrifood chains, and supporting environmental sustainability and resilience. Pacific Island Countries (PICs) already...

As this is written in mid-September 2022, the world is facing a potential food crisis worse than any since World War II. With a devastating war in Ukraine launched by Russia in late February 2022, a historic drought and heat wave in China, and an uneven monsoon in South Asia, food supplies from...

Agriculture plays a key role in economic development, alleviating poverty and malnutrition, especially in the early stages of agricultural development. Several studies have demonstrated that neglecting agriculture, especially at the early stages of industrialization, can disrupt the process of economic transformation. This paper reviews the process of agricultural transformation in Asia...

You can add good micro-organisms to your pond water to ensure good water quality. You can also treat the fry before stocking the pond. By adding good micro-organisms to your feed, it will be safer and better for the fish. At the time of harvesting your fish, sprinkle some micro-organisms...

This monthly e-newsletter gives a bird’s eye view of all the exciting updates from Access Agriculture, a world-leading organisation for quality agricultural training videos in international and local languages, working across the Global South.

Bananas are one of the most commonly grown fruit crops in Malaysia, but local production has declined in recent years. Through site visits and interviews with 74 smallholder banana farmers, this study sought to know the current situation of the local smallholder banana industry, the challenges faced in commercial banana...