New York, US (PANA) - A new partnership between the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Mauritanian authorities is expected to boost finances and nutrition for nearly 300,000 farmers in the southern part of the country. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - Prices of major food commodities declined for the fifth year in a row in 2016, averaging 161.6 points for the year as a whole, the UN food agency said on Thursday. Full text...

Lusaka, Zambia (PANA) – As the country tackles the destruction of maize fields by army worms, Zambian President Edgar Lungu says measures to control the outbreak are steadily yielding results, but he regrets the absence of members of Parliament in the national emergency operation. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Countries in the Horn of Africa are likely to see a rise in hunger and further decline of local livelihoods in the coming months, as farming families struggle with the knock-on effects of multiple droughts that hit the region this year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned Tuesday. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Achieving gender equality and empowering women is not only the right thing to do but also a critical ingredient in the fight against extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, said Friday. Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Although several studies have shown the global increase in food demand by 2050 can be met by increasing yields on existing cropland, a new study has found that countries south of the Sahara would be unable to meet growing cereal demand through yield increases alone. Full text...

Kigali, Rwanda (PANA) - The current President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Dr. Agnes Kalibata of Rwanda, has topped the list of 2016’s African Women of the year in Agriculture, Mining and Architecture, especially for her efforts towards a food secure Africa by the famous New African Woman Magazine, according to a statement made available Thursday to PANA in Kigali. Full text...

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - Supporting Tanzania’s agriculture, the Board of Directors of the African Development Fund (ADF) has approved a US$ 93.51 million loan to Tanzania for on-lending to the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB), the Abidjan-based Fund announced Wednesday. Full text...

Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) - Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has urged Nigerians to grow what they eat and consume what they make. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - Global production of all major wood products grew for the sixth consecutive year in 2015, while trade in wood products decreased slightly, according to new data published by UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Wednesday. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The United Nations announced on Tuesday, at a meeting of the world’s top agricultural scientists, that in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of defeating hunger and poverty by 2030, governments and the private sector must increase commitment to agricultural science and technology research. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - Colombian President and Nobel laureate Juan Manuel Santos will visit the headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome on 15 December for talks with the FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva and Neven Mimica, European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development. Full text...

Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) - Income inequality and a rising rural-urban divide, compounded by political instability, are the most challenging issues in the Near East and North Africa, says a new report unveiled here Thursday by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - Civil conflict and weather-related shocks have severely affected food security in 2016, increasing the number of countries in need of food assistance, according to a UN Food and Agriculture FAO report. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - The UN Food and Agriculture (FAO) Food Price Index dipped slightly in November, marking a mild departure from its steady rise over the course of 2016, the organisation said on Thursday. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - Following the worst El Nino-induced drought in decades in southern Africa, UN humanitarian agencies and partners on Wednesday launched a revised Action Plan to outlining their response to the needs of an estimated 13.8 million people as the region enters the peak of the lean season with largely depleted food stocks due to poor and failed harvests. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday stressed the importance of healthy soils, saying that "sustainable management systems and practices will unlock the full potential of soils to support food production, store and supply clean water, preserve biodiversity, sequester more carbon and increase resilience to a changing climate." Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - Soil and pulses can make major contributions to the challenge of feeding the world's growing population and combating climate change, especially when deployed together, according to Soils and Pulses: Symbiosis for Life, a new report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization released on World Soil Day. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Peter de Clercq on Friday appealed for an urgent scale-up in humanitarian assistance in the Horn of Africa country facing severe drought and food shortage. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - As the two-day International Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition kicked off on Thursday in Rome, Italy, participants were told that one in three people on the planet suffers some form of malnutrition, impacting public health and economic development at an estimated cost of US$3.5 trillion per year. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - The UN food and health agencies are organising a joint International Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition in Rome on 1-2 December to examine concrete actions in the UN nutrition decade. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) -Youth unemployment, insecure land tenure and weak value chains are the main obstacles in the way of ending poverty and inequality in West and Central Africa, said a new report presented Wednesday in Abidjan by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - Consumer awareness of the nutritional and dietary benefits of pulses, the edible seeds of leguminous plants and notably including lentils, chickpeas, cowpeas and many dry beans, remains inadequate and more must be done to promote their role in food systems, FAO Deputy Director-General Maria Helena Semedo said on Tuesday. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has launched a new and revamped FAOSTAT web site, making the world's most comprehensive statistical database on food, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, natural resources management and nutrition even more accessible for public use. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Vatican on Monday called for an intensified international push to stamp out human rights abuses in the world's fishing industry, including trafficking of people and forced labour as well as end the scourge of illegal fishing. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - Farmers in southern Madagascar, hit by three years of devastating drought, urgently need more support so they can plant crops in time for the December and January planting season, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Vatican are to shine a spotlight on "modern-day slavery" on the high seas as they host an event on this year's World Fisheries Day next Monday to examine human rights violations, including pirate fishing, child labour, and human trafficking. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - Mounting evidence that food systems may be major conduits of Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) point to the need for greater vigilance over the way antibiotics are used on farms, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Tuesday. Full text...

Marrakech, Morocco (PANA) - A new report released by the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) reveals that drylands, which cover some 40 per cent of the earth’s land surface, are critical in order to buffer the negative impacts of climate change, land degradation, and drought. Full text...

Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) – The Nigerian government has invited Russians to take advantage of the country’s arable land to produce and export agricultural products. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - The FAO Food Price Index averaged 172.6 points in October, up 0.7 percent for the month and 9.1 percent from a year earlier, with the staple grains' index rising for the first time in three months, the UN food and agriculture agency said in a news dispatch in Rome on Thursday. Full text...

Marrakech, Morocco (PANA) - The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has issued a new report which shows that for every dollar invested through its Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP), farmers could earn a return of between US$1.40 and US$2.60 over a 20-year period by applying climate change adaptation practices. Full text...

Chiang Mai, Thailand (PANA) - The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that in order to adapt agriculture to a changing climate, new approaches to irrigation will need to be developed and implemented worldwide. Full text...

Kigali, Rwanda (PANA) - Investing in new forage to small-scale farmers can be a low risk investment that will generate tens of millions of dollars, according to a new study made available to PANA by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - Three UN agencies operating in Algeria on Wednesday appealed for continued donor support for refugees from Western Sahara, warning that insufficient funding makes imminent a cut in basic food rations. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The impact of severe El Nino-induced drought on crop production in southern Madagascar, where nearly 850,000 people are acutely food insecure, is likely to persist into 2017 and requires an intensified humanitarian response, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned on Thursday. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - Countries and international organizations need to make "tremendous" efforts and increase their investments to improve national statistical capacities to monitor progress towards achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Full text...

Accra, Ghana (PANA) - The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) is having a positive impact in countries that have implemented its recommendations, according to the 2015 Annual Trends and Outlook Report (ATOR) released Tuesday in Accra, Ghana. Full text...

Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has donated, through the UN World Food Programme (WFP), a shipment of 50,000 metric tons of food commodities offered by the American people for the needy people across Sudan. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has begun a week-long meeting in Rome, Italy, poised in the wake of international agreements on new global Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change to forge ahead with coordinated action to transform the world's food systems and nutrition. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - The pledge to eradicate hunger and poverty must go hand in hand with rapid transformations of farming and food systems to cope with a warmer world, FAO said on Monday in a new report. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - To mark World Food Day 2016, the UN is highlighting the close links between climate change, sustainable agriculture, and food and nutrition security, stressing the need to boost agricultural productivity to feed the global population amid the challenges of climate change. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - The global community is not on course to end hunger by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal deadline of 2030, according to data from the 2016 Global Hunger Index, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)). Full text...

Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – Some 30 smallholder farmers in Kenya Tuesday embarked on a four-day resilience journey across different counties in the country with a clear message ahead of the World Food Day celebrations. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - This year's World Food Day will focus on climate change and sustainable agriculture, the UN Food and Agriculture (FAO) announced on Tuesday. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - Building strong alliances among legislators across the world is vital to making headway on hunger eradication, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said on Monday, as he underscored the agency's continued support to fostering global exchanges between lawmakers. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - Ethiopia is about to complete one of the largest and most successful seed distribution campaigns in the country's history, aimed at helping farmers to stay on their feet in the face of a blistering drought caused by El Nino, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Friday. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Friday announced a new partnership with the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM), aiming at adopting sustainable water bird hunting management to protect wetland resources in Africa’s Sahel region which are crucial for food security and economic development. Full text...

Rome, Italy (PANA) - The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM) will work together in a new partnership to improve the state of natural resources in the wetlands of Africa's Sahel region, in particular the sustainable management of migratory water birds which are crucial for food security for the local populations. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Global food markets will likely remain "generally well balanced" in the year ahead, as prices for most internationally-traded agricultural commodities are relatively low and stable, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Thursday. Full text...