Thursday, December 6, 2012
For Whom Do the FAO and Its Director-General Work?
Click here to read this story in full @: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/goswami041212.html
by Rahul Goswami
For farmers small and large? For the tens of millions of food-consuming households, poor or just getting by? For the governments and bureaucracies of small countries who want to import less and grow more? For the organic cultivators on their small densely bio-diverse plots? Or for the world's large food production, trading, and retail corporations, whose influence is wide and whose power is vast?
There is the continuing if travel-stained hope -- held by so many of us, those who work at humble stations in the food and agriculture sector -- that, of all those whom the director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO of the United Nations) does work for, it is not that last. But, since 2011 June, when José Graziano da Silva became the head of the FAO, the signs have been otherwise, and they are growing stronger with each passing month...
Click here to read this story in full @: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/goswami041212.html
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Pro-poor means this at United Nations
Click here to read the Decision of Executive Board of World Food Programme on housing subsidy for WFP Executive Director. Read on the last page how they refer to housing subsidy the FAO Director general receives.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Are you wondering where Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was/is ? Wonder no more : United Nations has engaged his services as best practices to fight hunger in Africa !
UN, African Union and Instituto Lula join forces to fight against African hunger
During a meeting at the African Union’s (AU) headquarters in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, the heads of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the African Union (AU) and the not-for-profit Instituto Lula agreed to pursue their “shared vision” of a hunger-free Africa through a coordinated campaign against malnutrition and food security, according to an FAO news release announcing the partnership.
“Building a food and nutrition-secure Africa requires better governance, renewed political will and strong commitment to work together through innovative and comprehensive food security and nutrition programmes and strategies involving all concerned stakeholders,” said FAO’s Director-General, José Graziano da Silva.
According to FAO statistics, the number of undernourished people on the African continent has steadily increased since the early 1990s, from 175 million to 239 million today.
Despite the negative trend, the Chairperson of the AU Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, underscored Africa’s agricultural potential, noting that 60 per cent of the continent’s arable land was still unutilized.
“This enormous potential can make a real difference to improve our agricultural production and food security,” said Ms. Zuma, adding that the time had come for African farmers to move beyond subsistence agriculture to more expansive methods of agro-industrial production.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
United Nations' Head of FAO blames U.S. for food scarcity in the world
Click here to read this in full @ Business Day Live: http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2012/10/26/the-worlds-debt-for-food-scandal
Another American factor is energy legislation that requires that nearly half this year’s maize output be devoted to producing ethanol for fuel. Six state governors have formally petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency administrator to implement a full, one-year suspension of the ethanol mandate. The FAO has already pressed the US to suspend its production of biofuel ethanol. Its director-general, Jose Graziano da Silva, says the worst drought in 50 years "is inflicting huge damage on the US maize crop, with serious consequences for the overall international food supply".
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
United Nations lied about 1 billion hungry people
Thursday, October 4, 2012
United Nations sucking up to China !

“Let me give you one number that illustrates the magnitude of this contribution,” the Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), José Graziano da Silva, said in presenting the agency's highest award, the Agricola Medal, to Mr. Wen at a ceremony in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, attended by 150 senior Government officials, representatives of Chinese farmers and academia.
“The number of poor in the world fell from 2.3 billion in 1990 to 1.5 billion in 2008, a reduction of 34.1 per cent. A world without China would have progressed much more slowly, with a reduction of only about 11 per cent of the number of poor over the same period,” he added, calling the award a tribute to Mr. Wen’s life-long dedication to promoting food security and poverty reduction in China and the world....
Click here to read this in full : http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=43191&Cr=food&Cr1=#.UG1vPBjK49A
Friday, September 28, 2012
Kevin Rudd says: " FAO and United Nations are to be blamed for food crisis - they are only printin reports instead of executing their mandate to really fight poverty and develop agriculture"

Click here to read this @ Nation.com.pk: http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/international/28-Sep-2012/un-criticised-on-food-security
HONG KONG - Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd on Thursday criticised the UN food agency for failing to do enough on food security, as fears mount of a repeat of the 2007-2008 food crisis.
Rudd told a conference in Hong Kong that the leadership of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), based in Rome, needed to get its act together and not just release “another set of reports”. “The fact that we’re having this kind of conference is an indictment of the failure of the FAO,” he told the meeting - titled “Feeding the world: Asia’s Prospect of Plenty” - which was organised by The Economist magazine.
“The execution of its mandate, which is food security, must now be done.“A practical programme against the billions of people who are hungry in the world today needs to be done - not another set of reports, not another set of committees. Action, action, action,” he told reporters later.
The FAO has called for “swift, coordinated international action” this month as a sharp rise in maize, wheat and soybean prices renews fears of a looming food crisis.Drought in the United States has pushed grain prices to record highs, and the FAO has cut its global 2012 rice output forecast due to low monsoon rainfall in India.
UN estimates say the world population is projected to increase by two billion people between 2012 and 2050 to around nine billion, with Asia accounting for more than half of the increase.“Hunger is the world’s most challenging problem,” UN World Food Programme China director Brett Rierson said.“There is a common perception that hunger is an African problem, but two-thirds of them are from Asia so hunger is here in Asia,” he said.
Manila-based Asian Development Bank warned in April that food shortages could slow poverty reduction, and a rise of 10 percent in domestic food prices could push 64 million more Asians into poverty.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
FAO accused of “promoting the destruction of peasant and family farming”
Published on Thu, 2012-09-20 07:28
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FAO director-general José
Graziano da Silva. (Photo: FAO/Ozan Kose) |
The appeal to private companies for doubling their investments “in the land […], in machinery and seeds” in “a vast swathe of land stretching from Mongolia in Central Asia to Morocco in North Africa” was made by Jose Graziano da Silva, director-general of the FAO, and Suma Chakrabarti, president of the EBRD, in an article published by The Wall Street Journal on September 6.
“The simple truth is that the world needs more food, and that means more production. There is plenty of room for agricultural growth in the areas in which the EBRD operates […]. The private sector can be the main engine of such growth,” Da Silva an Chakrabarti wrote.
“The private sector needs to double investment in the land itself, and in machinery and seeds. Investment in storage, transport and trading infrastructure are the key not only to ensure that food reaches its intended destination but also to build buffers against adverse shocks and droughts. Some of the infrastructure investment could be done jointly with governments in appropriately structured joint ventures,” they added.
La Via Campesina, GRAIN, Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo (CLOC), the World March of Women, the ETC Group and the Latin American Articulation of Movements Toward ALBA warned in a joint statement that “the heads of these two influential international agencies make a clear call for a world wide increase in private sector investment and land grabbing.”
Click here to read this in full @ Social Watch: http://www.socialwatch.org/node/15373
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
FAO publishes Russian Forest Sector Outlook study until 2030
Monday, September 24, 2012
FAO publishes "2012 State of the World's Forests Report" - brags about links with sustainable development, ask for money for indigenius groups but says no word on how will account for all past billions spent on forest

“The success of FAO’s work in improving lives will depend very much on how we balance the use and preservation of natural resources. This includes forests, which play an important role in environmental factors like carbon sequestration, soil and water quality preservation and conserving biodiversity,” said the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), José Graziano da Silva, at the opening of the agency’s Committee on Forestry in Rome, Italy.
The Committee is the highest FAO statutory body on forestry, bringing together heads of forest services and other senior government officials to identify emerging policy and technical issues, to seek solutions and to advise FAO and others on appropriate action.
During the five-day meeting, the Committee will discuss how to build on the commitments made at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) regarding the protection and sustainable use of forests. Among the issues to be addressed are rural development, the integration of forests with environmental and land use policies, and improving the management of forestry resources, including wood and non-wood products.
Some 100 Heads of State and government, along with thousands of representatives from non-governmental organizations, the private sector and civil society attended Rio+20, all seeking to help shape new policies to promote global prosperity, reduce poverty and advance social equity and environmental protection.
In his remarks, Mr. Graziano da Silva noted how some 350 million of the world’s poorest people, including 60 million indigenous people, depend on forests for their daily subsistence and long-term survival. However, deforestation and forest degradation are contributing to significant losses of soil each year, putting the lives of many in peril.
“Preserving our soil is necessary to sustain life on the planet and yet the slow process of desertification has not captured as much attention as it merits,” the FAO chief said, adding that sustainable agriculture and forestry can reverse soil degradation and help combat desertification, noting that, “we need to make sure that soil protection and the fight against desertification are placed high on the international agenda.”
“We will need to work together with governments, civil society and the private sector to maximize the role that forests and wooded land will play in food security in the future,” Mr. Graziano da Silva said. “It will take a collective effort, including of all our partners within and beyond the UN system, to manage the world’s forests in a sustainable way.”
The 2012 State of the World’s Forests report – which focuses on how sustainable use of forestry resources can help reduce poverty, hunger and climate change – will also be released during the Committee on Forestry meeting.
Friday, September 21, 2012
UN's FAO spent $1.1 Million to study shared stock of shrimp and groundfish in Guianas
To Read this in full click here: http://www.guyanatimesgy.com/2012/09/14/fao-studying-shared-stocks-of-shrimps-groundfish-in-guianas/
The Food and Agriculture Organ-isation (FAO) of the United Nations has facilitated a case study on the shared stocks of shrimps and groundfish in the Guianas-Brazil Shelf under the Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem (CLME) Project.
In a release, the FAO said the overall objective of the project is to
improve management practices of the shrimp and groundfish fishery at the
national and sub-regional levels, to ensure that maximum benefits can
be gained from these resources and to improve livelihoods of those
directly and indirectly dependent on these fisheries. The project
commenced in July 2011, and is expected to be completed in November
2012.
Guyana, Brazil, French Guiana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago are
involved in the study, whereby each country is expected to prepare a
Baseline Report on the current situation with respect to their shrimp
and groundfish fishery. A draft report was prepared for Guyana and
several priority issues and suggested actions were identified. The
report is expected to be validated by stakeholders.
To this end, the FAO, in collaboration with the Fisheries Department of
the Agriculture Ministry, will be convening a National Stakeholder
Consultation workshop. The workshop will be held on Tuesday, September
18, at the Regency Suites Hotel, Hadfield Street.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Helen Clark declares war against UN's Regional Economic Commissions and Kim Won-soo's Change Management Team
Helen Clark and a group of "thinkers" are extremely fraustrated with the latest attempts from the Office of Secretary General and more concretely Kim Won-soo and the Swedish Deputy Secretary General who are inclined of stripping UNDP from some of the main "duties" that until now (for almost 60 years) the United Nations Development Programme took them for granted.
But with all the scandals UNDP has gone thru, Ban Ki-moon pressed by some key donor countries is taking away slowly some of them, namely:
- UNDG (Development Group);
- One UN Initiative;
- MDGs and world coordination (recently appointed Jeffrey Sachs and a Committee of world renown experts in this area)
- HC (Humanitarian coordination); and
- RC (Resident Coordinators) ....after many complains from UNICEF, WFP, FAO and UNEP, Ban Ki-moon will be stripping UNDP from the jewel of the UN System - the ability to head the UN work in any country.
But Helen Clark is not known to give up easily. Her advisers (who are mostly connected to United Kingdom) are calling for help from the Kingdom experts in "development". After 5 years of Ban Ki-moon, now UNDP is telling many donors how ineffective Ban's team is and why the donors might have more to loose by letting UN Secretariat to go away with this "crime".
Thus the action plan for September will be to run a massive campaign with Donors and Member States, and destroy the reputation of Regional Economic Commissions (ECLAC, ESCWA, ESCAP, ECE), UN-DESA (Department of Economic and Social Affairs) and most importantly go after Kim Won-so (Ban's stooge).
Will have more about this very soon !
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
UNDP and FAO promises to assist Zimbabwe to regain breadbasket status
Click here to read this on Financial Express
HARARE, July 18 (Xinhua): The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Tuesday said it is prepared to work with Zimbabwe in ensuring the country regains its breadbasket status.
Visiting FAO Director General Jose' Graziano da Silva said this when paying a courtesy call on Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara. They discussed issues to do with food security in Zimbabwe and the region as well as financing of the agricultural sector by financial institutions.
Dr da Silva said Zimbabwe has the potential to become the breadbasket of the Southern African region, adding that the country can also emerge as one of the biggest exporter if government takes value addition seriously. "We have discussed at length issues that will improve Zimbabwe's agricultural sector," he said.
Mutambara said Zimbabwe has a lot to learn from FAO and Brazil on issues to do with food security, adding that stakeholders in the agricultural sector should take a holistic approach in addressing challenges that have bedeviled the sector
Friday, February 24, 2012
Financial Times: Gates attacks "outdated" UN food agencies
Am at special session of #WFP Board in Rome, focusing on need 4 integrated #humanitarian & #development response 2 #Sahel #foodcrisis.
On way 2 #Rome 2 meet with @ValerieAmos @JosetteSheeran@KGeorgievaEU @knwanze @grazianodasilva @nancylindborg on hunger crisis in #Sahel.
Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder turned philanthropist, has broken a taboo in the development community by publicly accusing UN agencies of allowing infighting and inefficiency to undermine the battle against hunger.
The comments by Mr Gates, the largest donor to food security from the private sector, echoes the thinking of many government officials and hunger activists. But few senior donors have publicly denounced the problems of the UN system.
The UN has three agencies devoted to food security with a combined annual budget of roughly $4.5bn: the Food and Agriculture Organisation, founded in 1945; the World Food Programme, created in 1961, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, founded in 1977. Although the three are based in Rome, they act largely as independent entities with little interaction.
Mr Gates, who has donated roughly $2bn to food security in the past decade and plans to give another $2bn in the next five years, told an audience of the three agencies in Rome that the current system was “outdated and inefficient”.
To read FULL ARTICLE go to Financial Times clik hereTuesday, January 3, 2012
Helen Clark welcomes "new broom" at FAO - forgets that after three years at helm of UNDP has failed to clean/reform her own house


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@UNDP and former Prime Minister of#NewZealand, passionate about human#developmentworld-wide. - RosLehtinen Ileana Ros-Lehtinen · UnfollowCongresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen