FAO Director-General QU Dongyu met today with the Vice-President and Minister of Equality and Equity of the Republic of Colombia, Her Excellency Francia Elena Márquez Mina, at FAO headquarters in Rome. The Vice-President conveyed her appreciation to the FAO Director-General for the support to the Republic of Colombia and highlighted the severity of hunger worldwide and particularly in Colombia where 15 million people suffer hunger or malnutrition.

To promote the rice straw-based circular economy in Vietnam, the Farmer Field Day on improving the production of indoor and outdoor straw mushrooms was held in Thot Not District, Can Tho City on December 21, 2023. The event was hosted by the Can Tho Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD), in collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the College of Agriculture, Can Tho University.

Amid the ongoing Ukraine-Russian conflict, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is extending vital assistance to farmers in Niger and Chad who are grappling with acute food crises. The conflict's ripple effect on global food and fertilizer prices has hit these Sahelian countries particularly hard, making food scarcer and unaffordable, especially for women and their children. To counter these challenges and help prevent the destabilization of the region, ICRISAT's Niamey genebank team, under the leadership of ICRISAT’s Niger Country Representative Dr Falalou Hamidou, has launched an initiative to tackle the issue.

“People here, on many farms, plant non-timber crops, take care of and reforest rivers and springs on their farms, but for this to be effective and for mitigation to occur, large projects and financial support are needed” (Participatory rural appraisal workshop participant, Belén de los Andaquíes, Caquetá, Colombia). Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) is a technique for qualitative participatory research that has its origins in the participatory action-research, and which facilitates the dialogue between academic actors and communities

In the face of the significant challenge posed by the ecological and social effects of climate change in the Amazon and its agri-food systems, there is high expectation regarding innovations that can be fostered and implemented for adaptation and mitigation. This urgency is also caused by the alarming changes in carbon reserves caused by deforestation in these forests. If this trend continues, the Amazon could become a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

To scale mechanized direct-seeded rice (mDSR) for increasing farming efficiency and reducing carbon footprint in rice production in Cambodia, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), in collaboration with the General Directorate of Agriculture (GDA), organized a training workshop and field demonstration on mDSR at the GDA Station in Kampong Speu province, Cambodia on December 1, 2023.

It is not nutritious, wastes scarce water and contributes to climate change. Yet rice is on the plates of most Indians every day. An age-old, but forgotten crop should provide a solution: millet. At India's initiative, the United Nations declared 2023 as the 'Year of Millet'. Kuldeep Singh can endlessly list different varieties of millets. He heads a gene bank in southern India, where the seeds of tens of thousands of variations of all millet varieties are kept in cold storage.

According to the newly released Integrated Food Security Phase (IPC) projections, 17.7 million people across the Sudan, which accounts for 37 percent of the analysed population, are facing high levels of acute food insecurity, classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse) between October 2023 and February 2024. The most acutely food insecure populations are located in states affected by high levels of organized violence, including Greater Darfur, Greater Kordofan and Khartoum – especially in the tri-city area of Khartoum, Bahri and Omdurman.

In Papua New Guinea's highlands, sweet potato is more than a staple food, it's a lifeline for thousands of smallholder farmers. Known locally as 'kaukau,' this tuber has been a cornerstone of sustenance and income. However, the challenges of climate change, pests, and diseases have put this vital crop at risk. In response to this challenge, colleagues in my office, have stepped in, embodying the ethos of 'Better Production' through innovative sweet potato breeding and conservation.

Leading technology giants like Amazon and Google are applauding and supporting the research institute’s innovative uses of artificial intelligence to accelerate the development of high-yielding, nutrition-rich, and climate-resilient rice crops, and to help farmers all over the world enhance their productivity and livelihoods. During his keynote at the AWS re: Invent 2023 conference a few weeks ago, Amazon’s Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Werner Vogels underscored how AI is not just the technology of the future, but is today being used by companies and organizations to solve problems and make the world better.