'The claims of Asia and the Far East’: India and the FAO in the age of ambivalent internationalism

If any nation were poised to actualize the developmental promises that the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) extended to the international community, it was India. India's independence came in the wake of devastating famine in Bengal and the fears of its recurrence, and the nationalists who had midwifed India's freedom staked their legitimacy to the promise of food for all. Yet from independence, the FAO played only a marginal role in India's agricultural development, its projects reflecting a winnowing scale of ambition. From early investigations into the improved cultivation of basic food grains, the FAO's projects grew increasingly modest by the time of the Green Revolution, revolving around modest improvements to capitalist agriculture, from wool shearing to timber and fishery development. Instead, India drew more substantively upon resources made available by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the United States Technical Cooperation Mission and occasional Soviet largesse. Meanwhile, the Indian most associated with the FAO, B.R. Sen (Director-General, 1956–1967), struggled to align the Organization's capacities with India's scarcity crises, even as his own understanding of famine drew upon his experience as India's Director of Food during the Bengal Famine.Accepted manuscrip

Improving European Organic Market Information - The OrganicDataNetwork Project

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has observed an increased need for the provision of market information and Market Information Services (MIS) in recent years

Paths to Fisheries Subsidies Reform: Creating Sustainable Fisheries Through Trade and Economics

The world depends on the oceans for food and livelihood. More than a billion people worldwide depend on fish as a source of protein, including some of the poorest populations on earth. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the world must produce 70 percent more food to meet coming hunger needs.Fishing activities support coastal communities and hundreds of millions of people who depend on fishing for all or part of their income. Of the world's fishers, more than 95 percent engage in small-scale and artisanal activity and catch nearly the same amount of fish for human consumption as the highly capitalized industrial sector. Small-scale and artisanal fishing produces a greater return than industrial operations by unit of input, investment in catch, and number of people employed.Today, overfishing and other destructive fishing practices have severely decreased the world's fish populations. The FAO estimates that 90 percent of marine fisheries worldwide are now overexploited, fully exploited, significantly depleted, or recovering from overexploitation

The emergence of international food safety standards and guidelines: understanding the current landscape through a historical approach

Following the Second World War, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) teamed up to construct an International Codex Alimentarius (or 'food code') which emerged in 1963. The Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH) was charged with the task of developing microbial hygiene standards, although it found itself embroiled in debate with the WHO over the nature these standards should take. The WHO was increasingly relying upon the input of biometricians and especially the International Commission on Microbial Specifications for Foods (ICMSF) which had developed statistical sampling plans for determining the microbial counts in the final end products. The CCFH, however, was initially more focused on a qualitative approach which looked at the entire food production system and developed codes of practice as well as more descriptive end-product specifications which the WHO argued were 'not scientifically correct'. Drawing upon historical archival material (correspondence and reports) from the WHO and FAO, this article examines this debate over microbial hygiene standards and suggests that there are many lessons from history which could shed light upon current debates and efforts in international food safety management systems and approaches

FAO/WHO GIFT (Global Individual Food consumption data Tool): a global repository for harmonised individual quantitative food consumption studies

Knowing who eats what, understanding the various eating habits of different population groups, according to the geographical area, is critical to develop evidence-based policies for nutrition and food safety. The FAO/WHO Global Individual Food consumption data Tool (FAO/WHO GIFT) is a novel open-access online platform, hosted by FAO and supported by WHO, providing access to harmonised individual quantitative food consumption (IQFC) data, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). FAO/WHO GIFT is a growing repository, which will serve as the global FAO/WHO hub to disseminate IQFC microdata. Currently five datasets from LMIC are available for dissemination, and an additional fifty datasets will be made available by 2022. To facilitate the use of these data by policy makers, ready-to-use food-based indicators are provided for an overview of key data according to population segments and food groups. FAO/WHO GIFT also provides an inventory of existing IQFC data worldwide, which currently contains detailed information on 188 surveys conducted in seventy-two countries. In order for end-users to be able to aggregate the available data, all datasets are harmonised with the European Food Safety Authority's food classification and description system FoodEx2 (modified for global use). This harmonisation is aimed at enhancing the consistency and reliability of nutrient intake and dietary exposure assessments. FAO/WHO GIFT is developed in synergy with other global initiatives aimed at increasing the quality, availability and use of IQFC data in LMIC to enable evidence-based decision-making and policy development for better nutrition and food safety

Limits of agricultural greenhouse gas calculators to predict soil N2O and CH4 fluxes in tropical agriculture

Acknowledgements This work was undertaken as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), which is a strategic partnership of CGIAR and Future Earth. This research was carried out with funding by the European Union (EU) and with technical support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The UN FAO Mitigation of Climate Change in Agriculture (MICCA) Programme funded data collection in Kenya and Tanzania. The views expressed in the document cannot be taken to reflect the official opinions of CGIAR, Future Earth, or donors. We thank Louis Bockel of the UN FAO Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA) for his comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Objective indicators of large-scale food shortages? Some remarks on their purpose and limitations

In the past, a rather late realization of acute and large-scale food shortages often contributed to insufficient preventive or remedial action. Against this backround a Working Party set up by the FAO Committee on World Food Security has suggested a number of “objective indicators” which are hoped to enable the FAO to make a rapid preliminary judgment of the overall food situation and of the nature of food shortages. Are these hopes justified

Discrepancies between two long-term dietary datasets in the United Kingdom

Background: Studying dietary trends can help monitor progress towards healthier and more sustainable diets but longitudinal data are often confounded by lack of standardized methods. Two main data sources are used for longitudinal analysis of diets: food balance sheets on food supply (FBS) and household budget surveys on food purchased (HBS). Methods: We used UK longitudinal dietary data on food supply, provided by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) (FAO-FBS, 1961-2018), and food purchases, provided by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) (Defra-HBS, 1942-2018). We assessed how trends in dietary change per capita compared between FAO-FBS and Defra-HBS for calories, meat and fish, nuts and pulses, and dairy, and how disparities have changed over time. Results: Estimates made by FAO-FBS were significantly higher (p<0.001) than Defra-HBS for calorie intake and all food types, except nuts and pulses which were significantly lower (p<0.001). These differences are partly due to inclusion of retail waste in FAO-FBS data and under-reporting in Defra- HBS data. The disparities between the two datasets increased over time for calories, meat and dairy; did not change for fish; and decreased for nuts and pulses. Between 1961 and 2018, both FAO-FBS and Defra-FBS showed an increase in meat intake (+23.4% and +1.4%, respectively) and a decrease in fish (-7.1% and -3.2%, respectively). Temporal trends did not agree between the two datasets for dairy, calories, and nuts and pulses. Conclusions: Our finding raises questions over the robustness of both data sources for monitoring UK dietary change, especially when used for evidence-based decision making around health, climate change and sustainability

Distribution of persistent organic pollutants (POPS) IN wild Bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) from different FAO capture zones

Residues of environmental contaminants in food represent a concern in food safety programs. In this study, the distribution of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) were evaluated in 79 tuna samples from FAO areas 51 (Indian Ocean), 71 (Pacific Ocean), 34 (Atlantic Ocean), and 37 (Mediterranean Sea). 6 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), 16 organochlorines (OCs) and 7 polybrominated biphenyl ethers (PBDEs) were selected as representative compounds according to EFSA POPs monitoring guidelines. An analytical method, based on Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE), with an "in-line" clean-up step and GC-MS/MS detection, was developed, validated and applied. PCBs were detected in all FAO areas, with a prevalence of 100% for most of them. In the FAO area 37, only, all PBDEs were detected. Only 5 OCs were detected. The results showed that POPs contamination of tuna reflects FAO area contamination; in particular FAO area 37 was the most polluted. Moreover, tuna muscle was an appropriate matrix for monitoring contamination and for obtaining information about food safety