It is important to develop the capacities of Asian and African countries for effective knowledge dissemination and technology transfer, according to Peter Brothers, head of IRRI Education. To help achieve this, IRRI Education, the Rural Development Administration (RDA) of the Republic of Korea, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) facilitated a training workshop on technology transfer systems in Asia, 26 June-7 July, at the International Technology Cooperation Center, RDA Headquarters, Jeonju, Republic of Korea.

Graziano da Silva briefs UN Security Council on need to save lives by saving rural livelihoods in Yemen. The scale of the food crisis in conflict-ridden Yemen is staggering with 17 million people - two thirds of the population - severely food insecure and seven million of these on the verge of famine, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said today in a briefing to the UN Security Council.

"Together with conducive and harmonized regulations, crop biotechnology innovations can help increase food production to address the needs of the growing global population, especially those in the developing countries like Uganda," said the Minister of State for Agriculture—Hon. Christopher Kibazanga. This was at the launch of the 2016 Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops report on July 6, 2017 at Hotel Africana, in Kampala Uganda.

Through combined high-resolution image-based phenotyping with functional mapping and genome prediction, a new research conducted at the Australia Plant Phenomics Facility (APPF) provides insights into the complex genetic architecture and molecular mechanisms underlying early shoot growth dynamics in rice.

On 1 July 2017, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus begins his 5-year term as WHO’s new Director-General. Dr Tedros previously served as Minister of Health and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Ethiopia and as Board Chair of the Global Fund and Roll Back Malaria Partnership. Dr Tedros plans to focus on five main areas of work during his tenure.

The closing workshop for the United Nations Joint Programme on Integrated Nutrition and Food Security to end malnutrition and stunting for children and vulnerable groups in Viet Nam was held today in Ha Noi by Ministry of Health (MOH) and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), in cooperation with the UN agencies.
 

Ademola A. Adenle (Colorado State University), E. Jane Morris (University of Leeds), Denis J. Murphy (University of South Wales) and other experts from around the world collaborated to come up with a book that summarizes cutting-edge perspectives on the risk analysis and governance of GMOs, supporting effective and informed decision-making in developing countries.

Genetic markers that could help unlock the diastatic power of barley were identified by researchers at the James Hutton Institute and Scotland's Rural College (SRUC). Diastatic power (DP) is a malt's ability to break down starches into simpler and fermentable sugars during mashing. The process is important in the production of grain whisky where the mash consists of up to 90% of unmalted cereal with the remaining barley component added in quantities sufficient for starch breakdown.

South-South Cooperation - partnerships in which developing countries exchange resources and expertise - is proving an inclusive and cost-effective tool to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said today. "South-South and Triangular Cooperation offers the possibility of an approach that is not the traditional way followed by donors. It is more horizontal and it is based on the concept of solidarity," he said.

According to Natalia Dudareva, distinguished professor of biochemistry and principal investigator of the project, volatile compounds are actively trafficked out of cells through the use of an ATP-binding cassette transporter (ABC transporter), which moves substances across cell membranes. It has been previously assumed that the emission of volatile compounds was through diffusion, not active transport.