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...

For the third time this regional event in Rudo gathered 130 local producers, entrepreneurs, NGO’s, public institutions, local authorities from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia.The aim of this event is promotion and preservation of traditional products of the cross-border region “Drina-Tara” and other SWG ABD regions, support of the...

With support from international organizations and projects, Ukraine is now in the final stages of preparing legislation that is expected to open the agricultural land market. As part of this process, FAO has been assisting with the introduction of land consolidation, and with the drafting of a land consolidation law....

Sixty Georgian farmers now own modern facilities for smoked ham and pig production, along with up-to-date agricultural tools and equipment. Wine makers, mushroom producers, beekeepers and woodworkers who specialize in making agricultural tools are also among the beneficiaries of an FAO rural development project, financed by the Government of Austria. The...

Over the past 15 years, in Central and Eastern Europe, a strong informal network of land tenure and land management professionals interested in and working with land consolidation, land banking, land market development and other similar topics has emerged. The process has mainly been driven and also partly funded by...

MagosVölgy Ecological Farm was established in 2013 by Judit and Zoltán Dezsény, a young urban-to-rural migrant couple. MagosVölgy Ecological Farm is situated in North-Hungary, 85 km north to the capital of Budapest. MagosVölgy literally means Seeds Valley as well as Elevated Valley. Seed is the core symbol of life, representing the...

Despite serious influences of climate change on food security and farm income, there is insufficient research in Central Asia on the impact of climate change on agro-ecosystems, farm incomes, and analysis of the potential adaptation strategies. There is very limited use of integrated assessments critical for analyzing environmental, economic and...

The power of statistics to support change cannot be overstated. In Tajikistan, no one knows this better than the State Agency for Statistics. High-level managers and professional statisticians from the Agency recently completed FAO training on a new methodology for surveying the country’s family farms. The practical training – conducted in...

By pooling the ideas and knowledge of technical experts, partners, and concerned national institutions, Kyrgyzstan aims to prepare a high-quality proposal for financing by the Green Climate Fund. A three-day national facilitation workshop on Green Climate Fund readiness and project formulation – hosted and organized by Kyrgyzstan’s State Agency on...