New York, US (PANA) - The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Thursday that food prices dropped to an 11-month low in October "but they are still higher than last year and very volatile". Full text...

Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (PANA) - The Ivorian government has dissolved all organisations involved in the management of the coffee/cocoa sector and taken charge of it, official sources told PANA here. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - A 20-minute documentary entitled ”The Cassava Revolution,” highlighting the huge role the crop can play in revitalising the Nigerian economy, fight poverty and hunger, ensure food security and earn foreign exchange for the country, has been presented to the Nigerian public. Full text...

Nouakchott, Mauritania (PANA) - Agriculture ministers from member countries of the Inter-State Committee on the Fight against Drought in Sahel (CILSS) will meet Wednesday and Thursday in Nouakchott, Mauritania, for their 47th ordinary session, official sources told PANA here Tuesday. Full text...

Luanda, Angola (PANA) - Members of the Angolan Methodist Church on Sunday began collecting foodstuff in a show of solidarity with victims of hunger and drought in Somalia, PANA reported, quoting the Angolan News Agency (ANGOP). Full text...

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Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Rapid population growth and natural resource degradation in the Nile River Basin pose the risk of intensified hunger and poverty in the region, the UN food agency said Thursday, indicating that they require better, more forward-looking development planning to prevent that from happening, Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - The role of forests in providing timber and other wood products must not overshadow their important contribution to feeding many of the world's poorest communities, a group of international forest organizations and secretariats said Wednesday Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - Angola has been elected a member of the board of the World Food Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - The massive international response to the child survival crisis in the Horn of Africa has already shown some positive results, but much more needs to be done, the UN child health agency, UNICEF, said in a report, released Tuesday in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) announced on Monday that it had received a grant of US$1 million from Econet Wireless Global to support AGRA’s efforts in assisting smallholder farmers in the organisation’s “breadbasket countries,” which include Ghana, Mali, Mozambique and Tanzania. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - Experts, at their opening meeting here Thursday, to prepare the common position of Africa in the Rio +20 conference, deplored the low increase in recent years, in cereal yields in member states of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Full text...

Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) – African households devote 50 to 75 per cent of their incomes to food, according to experts participating in the seventh session of the food security and sustainable development committee, which started onThursday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - Pressure was brought to bear on Congo on Thursday to release funds representing its contribution to the financing of agricultural development and feeder road rehabilitation (PDARP) project by the World Bank project manager, Amadou Oumar Bâ. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Peace Corps has joined the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), pledging to support and expand food security-related activities that will combat hunger in Peace Corps countries worldwide, a news release of FAO said Thursday. Full text...

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - Africa has 36 per cent of the additional undernourished registered worldwide, according to experts at a meeting of the African preparatory conference for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which began Thursday in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - Brazil and Spain have donated some US$6 million to secure food aid for over 375,000 civilians in Sudan, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) on Saturday called for concerted efforts to address the root causes of global hunger. Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Lessons learned from Asia’s Green Revolution about the damage which intensive farming can cause are being ignored in the race to help Africa feed itself, Christian Aid, an international charity, has warned in a report published Thursday to mark the UN’s World Food Day on 16 October. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - The Nigerian Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, on Tuesday warned that the nation could experience food shortage as exporting countries had scaled down exports to address internal shortages, the privately-owned Punch newspaper reported Wednesday. Full text...

Washington, D.C., US (PANA) - Global meat production and consumption have increased rapidly in recent decades, with harmful effects on the environment and public health as well as on the economy, according to research done by Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet project for Vital Signs Online. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - Food price volatility, featuring high prices, is likely to continue and possibly increase, making poor farmers, consumers and countries more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity, the three UN agencies, based in Rome, Italy, said in the global hunger report published Monday. Full text...

Cotonou, Benin (PANA) - Experts and African researchers have advocated for a Global Partnership for Rice Science (GRISP), whose aim is to achieve significant, concrete and unquantifiable results that will benefit the poor and the environment over the next 25 years. Full text...

Cairo, Egypt (PANA) - Egypt has highlighted the need for the establishment of a permanent regional body on food security under the auspice of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Full text...

Washington, D.C, US (PANA) - Worldwatch Institute's 'Nourishing the Planet' project has stressed the need for policymakers around the world to step up their critical efforts to combat hunger, malnutrition, and poverty by providing greater support for agriculture. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), on Wednesday called for urgent action and funding to prevent a looming crisis in Sudan’s Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states, where it said that, "the latest fighting combined with erratic rainfall has doomed next month’s harvest." Full text...

Njoro, Kenya (PANA) - Many small-scale farmers in East Africa, who have given up what farming following devastation to their products from Ug99, a new strain of stem rust that turns fields of wheat into black stubble, may breathe a sigh of relief as the Kenyan government and its global partners have found a way round the menace. Full text...

Brazzaville, Congo (PANA) - Specialized in agro-industry, Brazilian company, BR Africa, has expressed interest in the production, processing and marketing of cassava and related products in Congo, under the BR Africa Congo label, sources close to the Congolese agriculture and cattle-breeding ministry told PANA here Thursday. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - Freerice.com, the online game that allows players to improve their vocabulary while simultaneously fighting world hunger by making donations to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), launched its French and Italian versions on Thursday. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) on Wednesday said thousands of households in rural Ghana would benefit from Full text...

Accra, Ghana (PANA) - The state-owned Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has secured a loan US$ 2 billion to purchase cocoa and fund cocoa-related activities in the 2011/2012 crop season. Full text...

Cotonou, Benin (PANA) - Benin has adopted a plan to boost the production of rice, which is a staple in the country, PANA learnt Friday from official sources in Cotonou. Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - A new report by several regional and international organizations has said average harvests are expected in Africa's Sahel belt in 2011/2012. Full text...

Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigeria’s policymakers, the private sector and foreign investors have been urged to take advantage of the untapped opportunities available in the country's cassava sector, especially processing. Full text...

Johannesburg, South Africa (PANA) - The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and African leaders are working in concert to accelerate the issue of the adoption of "smart agriculture". Full text...

Johannesburg, South Africa (PANA) - The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and African leaders are working together to quickly adopt a "climate-smart" approach to agriculture to fight the impacts of climate change and increasing scarcity of natural resources. Full text...

Washington, DC, US (PANA) - The US will later Wednesday host a conference on the role of biotechnology in advancing African agriculture, the US State Department said here. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - East African leaders wound up their day-long talks Friday on the region’s drought and famine, fearing that the crisis could lead to further weakening of their economies, create routes for illegal trade and smuggling of deadly arms. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Countries need to pay more attention to fire management on lands bordering forests in order to prevent the 95 percent of wildfires that originate from human activities in forests and adjacent areas, an international partnership for forests warned Friday. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Against the backdrop of drought and famine in the Horn of Africa region, leading food experts have said greater investment in agricultural research, and an increased cooperation among scientists, governments, local enterprises and rural communities are critical to reducing the region's vulnerability to future droughts and extreme weather. Full text...

Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) - Unveiling its Agriculture Transformation Action Plan (ATAP), at its second meeting here since creation on 17 August, the Nigerian National Economic Management Team (EMT) said it would create 3.5 million jobs in the next four years, using massive focus on five agricultural crops – rice, cassava, sorghum, cocoa and cotton. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - About 6.3 million hectares of farmland have lost their fertility and water-holding capacity due to degradation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - East African ministers meeting here Thursday are expected to adopt a wide-ranging action plan, seeking rapid increments in long-term financing of drought-control measures, to deal with a cycle of drought and starvation in the Horn of Africa region. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf, Wednesday warned that pressure on the world’s limited amounts of soils available for agriculture, together with land degradation were threatening global food security and imperiling long-tem efforts to avoid widespread famine. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - The FAO Monday called for increased efforts to stem the food crisis in the Horn of Africa, as famine spread to a sixth area of Somalia, threatened with starvation to death in the next four months. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Monday called for heightened preparedness and surveillance amid signs that a mutant strain of the deadly bird flu virus is spreading in Asia and beyond. Full text...

Cairo, Egypt (PANA) - Egypt's Agriculture Export Council chairman, Sherif Al-Beltaguy said he expected the early lifting of an export ban on some Egyptian seeds by the European Union (EU). Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has begun distributing the first batch of more than a million vaccines across Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region, in a bid to protect livestock and other animals from deadly diseases during the current rainy season. Full text...

Accra, Ghana (PANA) – Ghana, the world’s second largest producer of cocoa after Cote d’Ivoire, has so far seen a record one million tonnes of cocoa in the on-going 2010/11 crop season, according to a statement released by Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) on Saturday. Full text...

Cairo, Egypt (PANA) - The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Egypt, Dr. Ahmad Al-Tayeb, has asked Muslims around the world to help alleviate the suffering of millions of Somalis facing the threat of dying from starvation due to the severe drought and famine that has hit the horn of Africa country. Full text...