Increasing agricultural productivity by over 20 percent just by using a negligible percent of arable land for creating forest areas sounds like a good deal. As practice shows, this is achievable with agroforestry – the practice of integrating woody vegeta

Vladimir Rakhmanin, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia, is awarded with the Hungarian Order of Merit by Hungarian Minister of Agriculture Istvan Nagy. Rakhmanin, who has served in his present role with

Encompassed by the Caucasus mountains with heights of 5 000 meters – offering breathtaking views and, at the same time, damming them – lies Georgia’s Tusheti region. Its inhabitants are strongly attached to this remote area, but the natural beauty alone i

Roughly one-third of all food produced globally for human consumption is lost or wasted every year, according to FAO estimates. Food loss and waste increases prices, reduces the availability of micronutrient-rich foods, and lowers the income of smallhold

More competitive small-scale farming and better livelihoods for rural people are central goals of the new cooperation agreement between FAO and the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Equally important are steps to confront climate change and manage nat

Agricultural development in Kyrgyzstan is being hampered by farmers’ lack of access to quality seeds, finance and market information, according to a new FAO assessment of value chains and the agribusiness environment. Additional factors slowing the devel

Ukraine, due to its geographical closeness to the European Union and its recently signed Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area agreement, has committed to aligning its food safety and quality systems with EU standards. The needed changes in legal requir

With extreme weather events posing serious risks to agriculture and the rural economy, the Macedonian Government has recognized the importance of regular information and early warning systems in guarding agriculture against climate change. At a workshop

The intensification of agricultural production and the effects of climate change have increased the pressure on crops from pests and diseases. According to recent estimates, annual losses caused by insects, weeds, and diseases are around 20–40 percent, a

Agriculture is an important sector in the national economies of Caucasus and Central Asian countries, and locusts can cause severe damages. However, technology developed by FAO allows anti-locust services to view online locust data collected in the field

Social protection plays a crucial role in accelerating progress in the fight against hunger, malnutrition and rural poverty, with the potential to transform the lives of rural women and men by improving their well-being and livelihoods. Still, evidence s

Forests are complex ecosystems that provide not only food, fuel and income opportunities for locals, but also provide important services at the global level as well. Recognizing this, FAO and the Czech Republic have been working together for more than ten

Aida Baimakova is only 27 years old, but already a year has passed since the Slow Food congress elected her international councilor for Belarus, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Russian Federation, and Ukraine. On the eve of Slow Food’s annual “Terra Madre” ev

Ukraine is well on its way to establishing a legal framework on self-regulation – a mechanism that will improve standards in the agribusiness sector and provide private companies with an opportunity to boost their role in defining their future. The legal

When the announcement was made that FAO regional offices around the world would each receive an additional US$ 1 million to advance food and agriculture priorities, the technical team in Budapest wasted no time in putting forward proposals for Europe and

Recognizing that the unregulated use of antimicrobials is a growing problem across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, FAO has been working hard to implement improvements across the region, with the support of the Government of the Russian Federation. One e

The green economy is creating new job opportunities in the forest sector in a variety of areas, such as recreation, leisure and sports, ecotherapy, urban forestry, and the control of pests, fire and disease. In this spirit, more than 30 forest experts fr

Humankind is in the midst of an unprecedented data-gathering and number-crunching effort, and national statistical offices are on the front line. Giorgi Kvinikadze is FAO statistician for the Europe and Central Asia region, based at the Organization’s re

Smallholders and family farms are strongholds of food production, food security, and rural development. Without innovation, their important services cannot be secured for the long term. Representatives of governments, academia, civil society, and private

Agribusiness representatives and agricultural trade experts from post-Soviet countries gather here this week for three days dedicated to agrifood trade. First up is the FAO-organized regional workshop on World Trade Organization (WTO) instruments, where