TURKISH AGRI.NEWS

FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) has called for transformational change aimed at addressing food security, agriculture and forestry. "It is possible to reconcile food security, agriculture production and forest conservation," said Qu Dongyu, FAO director-general at a dialogue on "turning the tide on deforestation" on the margins of COP25. To this end, FAO is working with countries to coordinate land use approaches across sectors, ensuring integrated management of forests and agriculture so that both food security and forestry objectives are met. Dongyu pointed out that a number of countries have managed to reduce the number of undernourished people and improve agricultural productivity while maintaining or increasing their forest area. Agriculture is a significant contributor to deforestation (over 70%), and with rising population and food demands, forests are increasingly under pressure. To address this, Dongyu put forward sol...

Trade War Tied to Fires in Brazil... An escalating global trade war is inarguably bad news for American farmers and ranchers, who have already collectively lost billions of dollars. Long-term damage to important trading relationships will likely cost billions more. But there's another victim of the trade war: the environment. Without the United States as a reliable trading partner, China has been forced to seek other markets for the commodities it has historically purchased from American farmers. And other countries have responded to this new opportunity. In order to meet China's thirst for soybeans, Brazilian farmers have converted large swaths of the savanna and forested land, likely contributing to the thousands of wildfires currently burning in the Amazon rainforest.  Completely changing a biome does not come without consequences. Eliminating native vegetation in the Amazon has shrunk the habitat for ten percent of all wildlife species and put thousands at risk of e...