An estimated one million people in Ethiopia are in need of emergency food assistance due to the ongoing desert locust invasion, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has warned.

As part of the programme to enhance the livelihood opportunities of smallholders, FAO Syria has been assisting 700 producers in the country to improve the quality and quantity of their vegetable production through nurseries that utilize low tunnels to produce seedlings, which will ultimately be transplanted in fields.

While the eyes of the world are on the novel coronavirus, East Africa continues to struggle with another crisis of biblical proportions: growing swarms of ravenous locusts. 

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Somalia have recently strengthened their partnership to scale up local capacities, surveillance and control operations to combat the desert locust upsurge.

FAO Director-General QU Dongyu has welcomed a $10 million donation from Mastercard Foundation to step up the fight against the desert locust outbreak in East Africa amid concern about an imminent upsurge in numbers. 

The livelihoods of millions of family farmers in Pakistan have been affected by a series of natural hazards in the last 14 months and now stand to be devastated by the spread of COVID-19, but action is underway to help them, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said today.

FAO Director-General QU Dongyu has thanked the Russian Federation for boosting the fight against the desert locust outbreak in East Africa by making a $10 million contribution to support FAO operations in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is already directly affecting food systems through impacts on food supply and demand, and indirectly through the decreases in purchasing power, the capacity to produce and distribute food, and the intensification of care tasks all of which will more strongly affect poor and vulnerable populations.

On 17 October 2019, nationwide protests erupted throughout Lebanon, coinciding with a major economic and financial crisis.

An implementation of an integrated and innovative intervention has sustained a source of food and income for the most vulnerable resident in villages along the river in Deir Ez-Zor Governorate in the Syrian Arab Republic.

The Government of Russia has announced a contribution of $3 million (KSh 300 million) to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to support Kenya’s response to the worst desert locust invasion to affect that East African country in over 70 years.

While Somalia and its partners, including the United Nations, focus on the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, other parts of the international organization remain concentrated on supporting the Somali authorities in a range of areas – including the current desert locust infestation. 

The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, said today that significant gains had been made in the fight against the desert locust upsurge in East Africa and Yemen.

Desert locust upsurges aren’t a new phenomenon. Locusts are one of the oldest migratory pests in the world and have wreaked havoc on crops across the globe for centuries.

Juan Carlos Rivera lives in the Dry Corridor of El Salvador, an area where high temperatures, low rainfall and regular droughts pose constant regular problems to his way of life.

The improvement of the security situation in Daraa Governorate in southwest Syria has allowed thousands of displaced families to return to their homes.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is seeking $350 million to scale up hunger-fighting and livelihoods-boosting activities in food crisis contexts where COVID-19's impact could be devastating.

In Mali, the first cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were reported on 25 March 2020 in a context of growing insecurity and when the Government had just declared a food security and nutrition emergency, for which it requested support from its international partners especially in view of last year’s poor crop production results

Throughout history 6 000 – 7 000 plant species have been cultivated for food. Yet today 40 percent of our daily calories come from just three crops: rice, wheat and maize.

The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, has warned that efforts to control desert locusts will take time, noting increased concern for the Sahel and Southwest Asia is adding to the burden of efforts ongoing in the Horn of Africa and Yemen.