News archive 2009

Significant amounts of the food produced in developing countries is lost after harvest thereby aggravating hunger. FAO stresses that with adequate investment and training food losses could be drastically reduced.

FAO is to provide the United Republic of Tanzania with advisory support for farmers that will help them better respond to market opportunities and thus heighten food security.

FAO has begun widespread consultations over international guidelines on governance of tenure to land and other natural resources such as water supplies, fisheries and forests.

Ground control operations are in progress against an infestation of desert locusts in Mauritania. As long as there are no heavy rains the infestations should be eliminated by early December.

FAO has published a toolbox on the right to food, designed to provide countries, institutions civil society and other stakeholders with a series of effective instruments they can use to assert the right to adequate food as a basic human right.

FAO's governing Council has unanimously approved the creation of a new regional fisheries management body for the Central Asia and Caucasus region.

African Swine Fever has reached St Petersburg in Russia causing concern that the deadly pig virus could spread to the European Union, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Faced with rising world hunger and unacceptable poverty and in response to calls for greater coherence and coordination, members of the FAO Committee on World Food Security (CFS) have agreed on a wide-ranging reform.

For the first time worldwide, free and ready-to-use high-resolution satellite data is now available to monitor forests and help reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. The monitoring system has been launched by FAO and other partners as part of the Global Forest Resources Assessment.

As FAO celebrates its 64th birthday on World Food Day, Director-General Jacques Diouf calls for a rapid solution to hunger and Pope Benedict XVI wishes rural development with respect for the poor.