Background In the context of COVID-19 outbreak, FAO RNE is organizing this Zoominar on Farmer organizations’ role in promoting innovation to increase food security, and sustainable rural development. Since the early spread of COVID-19, FAO underscored the crucial role of farmer organizations in increasing resilience and rethinking priorities of food security policies to keep food supply chains alive and to achieve the SDGs. In this critical context, FAO is highlighting the merit of scaling up innovation in agriculture, including digitalization and e-commerce; producing more food, in a more...
Background The Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak continues to spread throughout the Near East and North Africa (NENA) - Arab States region. The pandemic will have huge impacts on public health and represents already an unprecedented shock to economies, food systems and labour markets globally and in the NENA region, affecting rural poverty and resilience. It is estimated that an additional 8.3 million people in the region could fall into poverty. Given this broader impact, the consequences of COVID-19 pandemic require responses that go far beyond the health sector; including measures to assist...
Background Young people are driving innovation in agri-food systems and have a key role to play in achieving global food security and nutrition. The current crisis has brought both new challenges and opportunities for young innovators working to transform the sector. Paramount to ensuring that young people and their transformative ideas thrive is the ability of governments and partners to deliver an enabling environment and the business and technical support they need to grow. The Zoominar will address the following questions: How have young ag-tech innovators been affected by the crisis? How...
BACKGROUND The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are providing policy recommendations, guidelines and tools to improve Extension Advisory Services (EAS) systems, in order to build resilience of smallholders to crises and disasters. As the world is currently struggling to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, and the farmers in countries including NENA region are facing dual burden i.e., inadequate health services coupled with timely extension services for sustaining their livelihoods. The digital disruption in EAS may define the...
The following news was published by Watani International and is shared for information purposes. CAIRO, 22 July 2019. The Food and Agriculture organization of the UN has launched in Egypt a digital model of agricultural extension to enhance agricultural productivity. The move comes within the programme signed between FAO and the Egyptian Government to boost information exchange and technology transfer in agriculture for the period 2018 – 2022. Ezz El-Din Abu-Steit, Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, stressed that digital technology had the potential of facing threats of...
AMAN (Avian-Diseases Monitoring and Awareness Network) mobile app and web platform has been developed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a communication tool for early warning, reporting, monitoring and awareness services for small poultry farmers in Egypt (a country with 2.5 million small poultry farms). Through the AMAN app, a rapid, real time, efficient and highly open and confidential communication channel is guaranteed, allowing for an effective and immediate action during the occurrence of a poultry disease outbreak from detection, reporting and response...
