A strong and collective effort is needed to tackle climate change, which is already having direct and "tragic" consequences for people's lives, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva told Italian lawmakers Thursday. Climate-related factors are contributing to intensified food insecurity for many of the world's most vulnerable people -- worsening situations that were already quite dramatic, he said.

20 April 2015, Rome - Healthy soils are the foundation of global food production and ought to become a key agenda item in public policy, said Moujahed Achouri, Director of FAO’s Land and Water Division, addressing the third Global Soil Week in Berlin today.

University of Minnesota geneticist Dan Voytas developed Ranger Russet potato using gene editing. Ranger Russet does not accumulate sweet sugars in cold temperatures, prolonging its shelf life. At the same time, it produces lesser amount of acrylamide when fried.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) bestow the 2015 Patents for Humanity Award to the Golden Rice Project. The award is given to patent owners working to bring life-saving technologies to the underserved people of the world in the fields of medicine, sanitation, household energy, living standards, and nutrition.

CIAT: Safeguarding biodiversity is essential for achieving food security. We need crop diversity to be preserved both in farmers’ fields and in modern genebanks. And we need to make it available to all through an efficient global system, now and forever. Doing its part to ensure long-term conservation and use of crop diversity for food security worldwide, CIAT will construct a new state-of-the-art genebank with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)

An inception workshop today in Ha Noi has kicked-off a FAO-supported project to develop a well-functioning livestock monitoring system in Viet Nam. The project “Development of a livestock policy analysis and monitoring system in Vietnam”, also supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), will run from 2015-2016 with technical and financial assistance from FAO to set up and run a well-functioning livestock monitoring system to provide useful inputs to policy-makers.
 

The European Commission initiated a web-based dialogue on how science and innovation can help the European Union (EU) ensure safe, nutritious, sufficient, and sustainable food for the global population. The dialogue focuses on the theme of World Expo 2015, "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life," which aims to go beyond cultural activities and open a real political debate on global food security and sustainability.

Researchers from Kings Park, Western Australia discovered that aspirin's key ingredient, salicylic acid, plays an important role in plant transpiration during drought conditions. Salicylic acid has the ability to protect the photosynthesis system, allowing plant growth despite water deficit condition. This is possible due to salicylic acid's role in assisting stomatal openings regulation preventing too much water loss.

Uganda's State Minister for Industry and Technology has come out strongly to support the adoption of biotech crops in Uganda, noting that they have the potential "enhance productivity, address food security issues, increase production, and increase our export base". Hon. James Mutende made these remarks while launching the Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2014 on April 7, 2015 at Hotel Africana in Kampala, Uganda.

Is there a place for biotechnology in the world? What is its impact? These are some of the questions answered by biotech experts, farmers, economists, and journalists in ISAAA's latest brief titled Voices and Views: Why Biotech? The Brief was launched during the International Conference on Agricultural Biotechnology and Biosafety Communications on April 13, 2015 at Safari Part Hotel, Nairobi,