Sparing grasslands: FAO's active role.

Better information on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigation potential in the agricultural sector is necessary to manage these emissions and identify responses that are consistent with the food security and economic development priorities of countries. Critical activity data (what crops or livestock are managed in what way) are poor or lacking for many agricultural systems, especially in developing countries. In addition, the currently available methods for quantifying emissions and mitigation are often too expensive or complex or not sufficiently user friendly for widespread use.The purpose of this focus issue is to capture the state of the art in quantifying greenhouse gases from agricultural systems, with the goal of better understanding our current capabilities and near-term potential for improvement, with particular attention to quantification issues relevant to smallholders in developing countries. This work is timely in light of international discussions and negotiations around how agriculture should be included in efforts to reduce and adapt to climate change impacts, and considering that significant climate financing to developing countries in post-2012 agreements may be linked to their increased ability to identify and report GHG emissions (Murphy et al 2010, CCAFS 2011, FAO 2011).

Examines land availability and use in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as well as the trade-offs among competing uses, by introducing the land cover databases mobilized for this study before describing land use patterns, their determinants, and their evolution over time. The severe scarcity of land in the MENA region remains the critical issue emerging from the analysis. The demographic and climatic trends indicate increasing land demand, and yet land remains under growing stress from climate change. Increasing land scarcity leads to strategic trade-offs about the best use of land to meet competing economic, social, sustainability, and sovereignty objectives. Degradation and desertification, stemming from both climatic and anthropological factors—especially in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, and Syria—have high economic costs. If climatic and population trends continue as predicted, agricultural land will become significantly scarcer in the MENA region, falling to a level that could lead to a major crisis if not addressed.

Marking the twentieth anniversary of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) the annual report on the state of food and agriculture reviewed the progress achieved during the second postwar decade, 1954/1955–1964/1965. In his foreword Director-General B. R. Sen noted three distinct phases of FAO's history. In the first, covering the postwar decade, FAO played a role in the task of reconstruction. The second phase, coinciding with the second postwar decade, had been marked by a number of significant developments in science and communications, in demography, and in national aspirations which influenced the outlook and work of FAO. Calling attention to the unprecedented rate of population growth and lagging food supply, FAO had warned that this trend implied a grave peril for the future peace and security of the world. The Freedom from Hunger Campaign launched by FAO in 1960 had represented a response to this new awareness of the dimensions of hunger and malnutrition in the world and of the responsibility of the world community to face the problem. The third phase of FAO's work, opening with the third postwar decade, would be a critical period. Mr. Sen referred to FAO studies, contained in the report, which indicated that the total food supplies of the developing countries would have to be increased fourfold in the next 35 years to give their rapidly expanding populations an adequate diet. The task of FAO, which would depend on the willingness of the leaders of the nations to devote a large share of the world's resources to meet the crisis, would be to assist in laying the foundation for this increase.

A regional project as part of the Transboundary Agroecosystems Management Project (Kagera TAMP) was implemented in the Kagera River basin covering Burundi, Rwanda Tanzania and Uganda. The project was implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations with financial support from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the governments of the riparian countries. In Tanzania, the project was conducted in four districts (Bukoba, Karagwe, Missenyi and Ngara) in the Kagera region. The project was implemented to address the causes of land degradation, restore ecosystem health and function and generate a range of global environmental benefits across the Kagera basin. In Tanzania, 10 micro-catchments were selected for project implementation involving 14,282 farmers covering about 3500 ha of land. The type, degree and direct and indirect causes of land degradation in the basin were assessed for different land use systems. Similarly, good practices of sustainable land management and their extent, effectiveness and trends were evaluated. A range of maps were developed and used to select land degradation priority areas for project intervention (hotspots). Successful sustainable land management (SLM) practices were introduced into the curriculum of the Farmer Field School (FFS), and a holistic catchment approach was adopted to address SLM in an integrated and multi-sectoral way. Through adopting this catchment approach (see also a long version of the definition on p. 15), drying water sources were regenerated that provide a reliable water supply for domestic and livestock use. Furthermore, training of extension staff and facilitators for the farmer field schools improved smallholder farmers’ knowledge and skills in applying sustainable land management practices. Cropland management increased the crop yield of bananas, maize, beans, and cassava from 20 % to sometimes more than 60 %. Planting of Cajanus cajan and other types of agroforestry technologies, application of farmyard manure and contouring were superior for improving soil quality and reducing soil erosion by more than 20 % of the covered area. Construction of physical contours and their strengthening with vegetative materials, such as fruit trees, grasses and shrubs, including Cajanus cajan, pineapples, vetiver and lemon grass, improved the soil quality. Improved soil quality also increased household income and improved household and community nutrition, which are short-term SLM benefits. These benefits were powerful incentives that led to wider adoption of SLM practices in all catchments. Soil organic carbon sequestration exceeded 20 %. Grassland carrying capacity was improved from 2.5 to 0.7, 5.0 to 0.4 and 3.3 to 0.7 ha/tropical livestock units (TLU). Grassland biodiversity regenerated with the reappearance of endangered trees, shrubs and grasses that have medicinal, socio-economic and cultural value. A total of 31 technical and three policy recommendations were developed and submitted to policy and decision makers for inclusion in development plans. The main challenges included the low priority given by national and local governments to land degradation issues and the lack of financing for and investment in upscaling of sustainable land management practices, limited attention given to land use conflicts and their management, and land tenure and addressing SLM on a sector basis instead of a multi-sector basis. With the benefits demonstrated in implementing the Kagera TAMP project, communities have been empowered to demand further improvement of their natural resources base.

Techniques to more accurately quantify crop evapotranspiration (ETc) are needed fordetermining crop water needs and appropriate irrigation scheduling. In this study, remotely sensedobservations of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) were used to estimate cottonbasal crop coefficients (Kcb), which were then applied within the dual crop coefficient procedures ofthe Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), Paper 56 (FAO-56) to calculate daily ETc. An experiment in central Arizona during 2003 compared irrigation scheduling using a remotely sensedKcb technique (NDVI treatment) with the FAO-56 Kcb curve (FAO treatment). The FAO curve waslocally developed for optimum crop conditions and standard cotton density. Final lint yield meanswere not significantly different between the two irrigation methods, which included sub-treatments oftwo levels of nitrogen and three plant densities. However, NDVI attained higher yields under low Ninput, whereas FAO generally had higher yields under high N. The ETc estimated using the NDVI-Kcbmethod was in closer agreement with measured cumulative ETc than the FAO Kcb. For high Ntreatments, the mean absolute differences between measured and estimated cumulative ETc duringthe growing season for typical, dense, and sparse populations (10, 20, and 5 plants m-2, respectively)were 4, 17, and 4 mm, respectively, for NDVI, whereas they were10, 32, and 13 mm, respectively,for FAO. Although additional research is needed for improving our remote sensing technique, itpotentially offers an improvement over the FAO Kcb curve for quantifying actual ETc.

** The paper is based on the study carried out by the author for FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) and FANRPAN (Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network) as a consultant.
 Based on the projection on population growth and food consumption pattern in developing countries, there is likely to be a deficit in the food production by the year
 2050. Africa’s population has just passed 1 billion and it is expected to double by the year 2050 (FAO 2012) According to FAO, Sub Saharan Africa, Uganda inclusive, is the region that has the highest proportion of poor and undernourished people in Africa (FAO,2011a). Agricultural production will, therefore have to increase by at least 70% in order to ensure that the food demands are met.
 Meeting the food demands of a growing population is already a formidable task for agricultural sector of many developing nations like Uganda but this will be further exacerbated by climate change. Largely due to climate change, agricultural productivity is likely to decrease. Similarly, the stability of production and incomes are likely to change. This trend may be even worse in countries which are already experiencing food insecurity (FAO 2012)
 The important implication of this is that for Uganda, policy makers will be faced with an even greater challenge to ensure that agriculture contributes more in addressing food security issues, development and climate change (adaptation and mitigation). In other words, agriculture in Uganda must undergo major and significant transformation in order to address the challenges likely to be faced in achieving food security and responding to climate change. Put in another way, in order to stabilize output and income, production systems must become more resilient or more capable of performing well in the face of disruptive events. This requires transformation in the management of natural resources and higher efficiency in the use of these resources and inputs for production. 
 According to FAO, approaches that seek to maximize the benefits and minimize the trade-offs across the multiple objectives, often associated with agricultural sector, require more integrated and coordinated planning, policies and institutional arrangements as well as financing and investments. Such approaches and related enabling requirements are referred to by FAO as climate smart agriculture. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is thus a way to ensure the achievements of future food security under climate change. CSA encompasses sustainable agriculture and it includes the need for adaptation and the potential for mitigation with associated technical, policy and financing implications.
 This scoping study attempts to review and examine the current production practices as it relates to CSA in Uganda. The study also seeks to conduct comprehensive reviews of the existing policies, analyze gaps and identify relevant policy recommendations.

Abstract. Accurate cropland mapping is essential for understanding agricultural dynamics in Africa and critical for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as Zero Hunger. Large-scale cropland mapping encounters several challenges, including the varying landscape characteristics of cropland across different regions, extended cultivation periods, and limited availability of reference data. This study develops a 30 m resolution African annual cropland distribution (namely AFCD) dataset spanning the years 2000 to 2022. To extract this large-scale cropland distribution data, we employed random forest (RF) classification and continuous change-detection (CCD) algorithms on the Google Earth Engine platform. Robust training samples were generated, and a locally adaptive model was applied for cropland extraction. The final output consists of annual binary crop/non-crop maps from 2000 to 2022. Independent validation samples from numerous third-party sources confirm that the map's accuracy is 0.86 ± 0.01. A comparison of the cropland area estimates from AFCD with those of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for Africa yielded an R2 value of 0.86. According to our estimates, Africa's cropland expanded from 1.9435×108 ha in 2000 to 2.1092×108 ha in 2022, marking a net increase of 8.53 %. Prior to 2005, changes in Africa's cropland area were gradual, but after 2006, there has been a marked acceleration in cropland expansion. Despite this continued growth, Africa also experienced significant cropland abandonment. By 2018, abandoned cropland accounted for 11.52 % of the total active cropland area. AFCD also avoided the misclassification of buildings, roads, and trees surrounding cropland common in existing products. The study further highlights the unique advantage of AFCD in providing a dynamic annual cropland dataset at 30 m resolution for Africa. This dataset is a crucial resource for understanding the spatial–temporal dynamics of cropland and can support policies on food security and sustainable land management. The cropland dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14920706 (Lou et al., 2025).

Purpose. The study aims to analyze critically the system and functions of specialized agencies, programs and United Nations (UN) funds that ensure the implementation of the second goal of sustainable development (GSD2), to identify the components of global initiatives for the successful implementation of the Zero Hunger Policy.
 Methodology / approach. The methodological approach of the study are theoretical provisions and practical recommendations for the formation of the food supply system, economic theory, which determines the patterns of food distribution, scientific works of domestic and foreign scientists on sustainable development of the agricultural sector to achieve Zero Hunger. The following methods were used in the research process: statistical (regression analysis of the assessment of factor’s impact on the level of daily energy value of food consumed in households in Ukraine), monographic (mechanism of GSD2 implementation in the global dimension), historical method (the UN’s composition and function in guaranteeing GSD2 implementation), systematic analysis (composition and roles of international institutions within the United Nations in guaranteeing GSD2 implementation), direct analysis and synthesis (areas of FAO’s activities in ensuring the implementation of GSD2 at the national level) etc.
 Results. The study found that global initiatives for successful implementation of the Zero Hunger Policy are based on three components: regulatory support, the activities of international organizations coordinated by the UN, and the implementation of the GSD2 framework and programs at the national level, which support most countries across the globe interaction with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
 Originality / scientific novelty. Theoretical provisions regarding global initiatives for the implementation of Zero Hunger Policy have further developed: the main functions of specialized agencies, programs and UN funds that ensure the implementation of GSD2 were systematized, the degree of their spread and influence was determined; it was proved that FAO had a significant potential comparative advantage in assisting countries to meet new challenges in GSD2 monitoring; it was found that the activities of FAO together with partners to ensure global processes for the implementation of GSD2 include different areas.
 Practical value / implications. The obtained results are important for building a network of institutional and international cooperation for the successful implementation of Zero Hunger government policies.

Climate risk screening tools to enhance access to finance: A global framework piloted by the FAO

Strengthening the BTWC: The role of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in combating natural and deliberate disease outbreaks

The author discusses on the Rome Diplomatic Conference budget, which included his insistence on the installation of voting machines in the plenary hall of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) building, as it was clear to him that voting was almost certainly going to be necessary. The FAO building made a disheartening first impression on these new arrivals, which was confirmed throughout the Conference. The Drafting Committee started with the text forwarded by the Preparatory Committee. The French delegation was tripartite throughout the Preparatory Committee and the Rome Diplomatic Conference, with members of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which headed the delegation and was responsible for good coordination with the Justice and Defense Ministries. Keywords:drafting committee; Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); French delegation; Rome Diplomatic Conference

A contested issue in the international debate on food security is the role of trade in safeguarding food security at the global and national level. This paper explores how the issue of food security and trade has been discursively framed in two international organizations, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO), from 1945 to 2014. We argue that there are identifiable shifts in FAO’s positions on food security and trade in the 1980s and 1990s towards trade liberalization as advocated by the WTO. The official view of the WTO secretariat and many of its member states (proponents of trade liberalization in agriculture) is that trade liberalization is both necessary and conducive for food security. The FAO has adopted this discourse. Although this is the dominant discursive framing, counter-framings of the food security - trade problem has played an important role in the deadlock of the Doha Round negotiations. We consider how this may influence the global food trading regime.

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the early years of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its conceptualization of ‘rural welfare’, an approach that foresaw the modernization of agricultural societies and the alleviation of poverty through improvements in labor, housing, health, education of people working in agriculture. Based on the correspondence of FAO officials and experts, the paper shows how in the late 1940s, the Rural Welfare Division, under the leadership of its Director Horace Belshaw, promoted a low-modernist and local-sensitive approach to rural development that emphasized the subjectivity of welfare and that was skeptical of top-down development programs. As the paper argues, Belshaw's holistic understanding of rural communities was abandoned in the early 1950s in favor of an increasingly technical development consultancy, characterized by short-term interventions rather than by an intellectual and scientific debate about the larger implications of development.

Understanding crop water requirements (CWR) in semi-arid region is essential for better irrigation practices, scheduling and efficient use of water since the water supply through rainfall is limited. This paper estimated the crop reference and actual evapotranspiration (Eto and ETc) respectively and the irrigation water requirement of rice (Oryza sativa L.) in Benin’s sub-basin of Niger River (BSBNR) of west Africa, using CROPWAT model. The long recorded climatic data, crop and soil data from 1942 to 2012 were computed with the Cropwat model which is based on the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) paper number 56 (FAO56). The Penman-Monteith method was used to estimate ETo. Crop coefficients (Kc) from the phenomenological stages of rice were applied to adjust and estimate the actual evapotranspiration ETc through a water balance of the irrigation water requirements (IR). The results showed the BSBNR annual reference evapotranspiration (ETo) was estimated at 1 967 mm. The lowest monthly value of ETo of 123 mm, was observed in August month, middle of the rainy season while the highest value 210 mm was observed in March within dry season. The crop evapotranspiration ETc and the crop irrigation requirements were estimated at 651 mm and 383 mm, respectively in rainy season and 920 mm and 1 148 mm, respectively within a dry season. Irrigation projects of these seasons can then be scheduled for water use efficiency based on these findings. Keywords: crop evapotranspiration, irrigation water requirement, rice, CROPWAT, model, Benin DOI: 10.3965/j.ijabe.20150802.1290

Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) is an important factor for agricultural activity and water management. Its estimation methods have significant regional differences. The Penman–Monteith (P‐M) method, which is recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has been widely accepted, but it requires a large amount of data. This study analysed the performance of 12 ET0 estimation methods in different sub‐regions and periods by comparing them with the FAO P‐M method. Northeastern China was divided into eight sub‐regions according to their terrains and climates. Meteorological data obtained from 126 stations in these sub‐regions between the 1950s and 2014 were used to calculate the ET0 values. The performances were identified via four indices: root mean squared error, mean absolute error, average ratio and Spearman's correlation co‐efficient. The optimal method for agricultural areas was then modified by using linear regression analysis. The results are as follows: the Valiantzas2, Romanenko2 and H‐Makkink methods are recommended as alternative methods during the crop‐growing period, whereas the Turc and Hargreaves–Samani methods can generate significant biases. The Valiantzas2 and H‐Makkink methods are the optimal ones for estimating ET0 values in agricultural areas. Based on the outputs from the FAO P‐M method, ET0 values are most sensitive to temperature, accounting for 59.5%. Other methods that provide similar results can be considered as alternatives. Finally, the modified equation can provide the most accurate results, but drought events also affect the accuracy of the modified method.