The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and debate policy. FAO is also a source of knowledge and information. We help developing countries and countries in transition modernize and improve agriculture, forestry and fisheries practices and ensure good nutrition for all.

10 October 2008 – The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR) today signed an agreement to enhance their cooperation to promote and support education, research and technical and institutional capacities in developing countries.

10 October 2008 - Climate change and bioenergy are the focus of this year’s World Food Day activities, expected to involve over 150 countries. FAO celebrates World Food Day each year on 16 October, the day on which the Organization was founded in 1945.

It is an uphill task, but in the highlands and the lowlands, Rwanda is slowly but surely restoring the slopes of its thousand hills. Many of them are green once more, but still in poor condition due to environmental degradation, mainly caused by human activity and the ravages of the war and genocide of 1994.

27 October 2008 - Communities in Haiti suffering severe food insecurity are to be assisted by a USD 10.2 million package which will quickly boost Haiti’s battered agriculture sector.

28 October 2008- Carbon financing could provide a major boost to agricultural development and food security while at the same time helping mitigate and adapt to climate change.

24 October 2008 - Former US President Bill Clinton urged the international community to stop using the global financial crisis “as an excuse” to avoid dealing with escalating hunger, adding that over the long term, only agricultural self-sufficiency could take a significant bite out of world hunger and stave off future financial woes.

17 October 2008- Europe’s forests are growing at the rate of about 360 million cubic metres annually, yet only two-thirds of this growth is being exploited. Given that forests are essential to the global energy balance, the vital role of forests in combatting climate change are among the major issues to be debated at the first-ever European Forest Week, taking place at FAO Headquarters from 20 to 24 October 2008.

22 October 2008 – Ministers and officials from over 120 governments will meet in Rome next week to decide whether to add two pesticides – endosulfan and tributyl tin compounds – and the industrial chemical chrysotile asbestos to a trade watch list that already contains 39 hazardous substances.

15 October 2008 - Women make up over half the agriculture labour force yet they are frequently subject to discrimination, poverty and hunger. A new publication launched today, investigates the situation of women in the rural workforce and how some of the main challenges facing such women can be overcome.

15 October 2008 - The European Professional Football Leagues and FAO today launched a campaign to raise funds and awareness about the increasingly critical problem of world hunger.

15 October 2008 - FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf tells Governments they should avoid reducing aid to agriculture and imposing protectionist trade measures in response to the global financial crisis.

16 October 2008 - FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf calls for a political and financial push to boost sustainable agriculture in the world’s poor countries, double global food production and free the world of hunger and malnutrition.

11 September 2008 - With much of Haiti’s agricultural land under water following four major tropical storms, FAO today appealed for US$10.5 million to help rebuild the country's agriculture sector.

11 September 2008 - Agricultural output is expected to increase significantly in the Russian Federation and Ukraine this year, as higher food prices have led to an expansion in area planted in cereals.

9 October 2008 - Economic losses in marine fisheries resulting from poor management, inefficiencies, and overfishing add up to a staggering US$50 billion per year, according to a new World Bank-FAO report released today. Taken over the last three decades, these losses total over $US2 trillion, a figure roughly equivalent to the GDP of Italy.

9 September 2008 - FAO is helping Morocco deal with an outbreak of peste des petits ruminants (PPR) that threatens to kill millions of sheep and goats and could possibly spread to neighbouring countries. The outbreak has largely affected sheep, with 133 outbreaks in 29 provinces so far.

26 September 2008 – WHO and FAO are urging affected countries to ensure safe feeding of millions of infants following the ongoing melamine milk crisis in China. The two agencies also called on countries to be alert to the possible spread of melamine-contaminated dairy products.

22 September 2008 - Safeguards introduced to protect seabirds from longline fishing activities are reducing the number of accidental bird kills, and similar measures are being urged in other forms of industrial fishing.

17 September 2008 - Increased farm production is the key to solving the world food crisis which plunged another 75 million people into poverty last year.

18 September 2008 -- Rising prices have plunged an additional 75 million people below the hunger threshold, bringing the estimated number of undernourished people worldwide to 923 million in 2007.