TURKISH AGRI.NEWS

Rome, 20 April 2020 - With the COVID-19 pandemic and economic slowdown threatening the lives and livelihoods of the world’s most vulnerable people, the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) today committed US$40 million, and launched an urgent appeal for additional funds, to support farmers and rural communities to continue growing and selling food. IFAD’s new multi-donor fund, the COVID-19 Rural Poor Stimulus Facility , will mitigate the effects of the pandemic on food production, market access and rural employment. As part of the broader UN socio-economic response framework, the Facility will ensure that farmers in the most vulnerable countries have timely access to inputs, information, markets and liquidity. On top of its own contribution, IFAD aims to raise at least $200 million more from Member States, foundations and the private sector. “We need to act now to stop this health crisis transforming into a food crisis,” said Gilbert F. Houngbo, Presid...

It has been three weeks since COVID-19 has drastically altered the daily lives of IFAD staff headquartered in Rome and stationed around the world. Scientists and governments around the world agree that one of the ways we can stop the virus from spreading is physical distancing. Yet the distancing measures needed to contain the coronavirus outbreak are slowing down the world’s economic engine, and this will have a tremendous impact on the global economy, with the most fragile countries and most vulnerable populations paying the highest toll. In a world that is slowing down, poverty will accelerate, and hunger will follow. In the Arab world alone, ESCWA forecasts that as a direct result of the outbreak, the number of poor will increase by 8.3 million, no less than 1.7 million jobs will be lost in 2020, water will become scarcer – and hunger might consequently take more lives than the virus. In a world that is slowing down, our commitment is increasing... The whole of IFAD’s Near East,...

Morocco and IFAD to invest in smallholder farmers’ climate change resilience... December 3, 2019 A new €82.6 million agricultural development project financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of Morocco will help 11,200 vulnerable households to increase their productivity and incomes in the face of climate change. In Morocco, the agriculture sector is the backbone of the economy, contributing 13 per cent to the country’s GDP and generating 85 per cent of jobs in rural areas. However, the sector is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, leaving smallholder farmers at risk. The new Taza Mountain Integrated Rural Development Project for the pre-Rif Region (PRODER-Taza) will help to build the resilience of smallholder farmers in Taza Province, where the agriculture sector is dominated by subsistence farming and the production of rainfed crops. The financing agreement for PRODER-Taza was signed today by Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of ...

A record 45 million people across southern Africa face severe food shortages in the next six months, with around a quarter of them currently enduring drought-induced "crisis" food insecurity, three United Nations agencies warned on Thursday. The 16-member Southern African Development Community is in the grips of a severe drought, as climate change wreaks havoc in impoverished countries struggling to cope with extreme natural disasters, such as Cyclone Idai which devastated Mozambique earlier this year. "We've had the worst drought in 35 years in central and western areas during the growing season," said Margaret Malu, acting regional director for southern Africa at the World Food Programme (WFP). "We must meet the pressing emergency food and nutrition needs of millions of people, but also invest in building the resilience of those threatened by ever more frequent and severe droughts, floods and storms," Malu said in a statement. WFP, the Food...