News archive 2009

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf begins a 24 hour hunger strike to call for action to end the scourge of hunger and in solidarity with the one billion humans who suffer chronic malnutrition. He called on "people of goodwill everywhere" to join him in a worldwide hunger strike this weekend. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has announced he will be joining the strike on Sunday.

The World Summit on Food Security is set to open on Monday 16 November to give a new momentum to the fight against hunger and malnutrition affecting 1.02 billion people. Pope Benedict XVI will deliver a keynote speech while UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf will also address the Summit.

With privatization, globalization and the transformation of the food chain from the farm to the table, the importance of the private sector has increased, said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf addressing an international private sector forum on food security.

On the eve of the World Summit on Food Security, FAO is calling for a day-long, worldwide hunger strike this weekend to show solidarity with the one billion people living in chronic hunger.

Rising global hunger figures mask the fact that 31 out of 79 countries monitored by FAO have registered a significant decline in the number of undernourished people since the early nineties. FAO wants to see the lessons learned repeated.

Food prices in poor countries that are net importers of food still remain stubbornly high despite a good 2009 world cereal production, FAO warned today in its latest Crop Prospects and Food Situation report. The report was published ahead of the Rome World Summit on Food Security.

Just in time for the upcoming planting season, the European Union put in motion a major effort to turn the tide of rising hunger in Pakistan. Partnering with FAO, quality seed and fertilizer were distributed to almost 100 000 farmers, hit hard by last year’s food price hikes.

At the height of the 2008 food price crisis, FAO, through its Initiative on Soaring Food Prices, launched a series of one-year input supply projects to help vulnerable farmers grow more food and earn more money. In Kenya, where civil unrest, drought and high food, fuel and input prices have left poor families even more vulnerable, this assistance has given one community hope for a better future.

The twin battles to improve food security for a growing world population and contain climate change can be fought on the same front - the world's farmland, FAO said in a new report.

Senior Managers of FAO, IFAD and WFP met ahead of the World Summit on Food Security to determine how to maximize each agency's expertise and comparative advantage so their combined efforts better serve the world's 1.02 billion hungry people.