Food And Agriculture Organization

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Thursday that it will send $25 million in food to refugees in Algeria, Pakistan, Sudan and Tanzania.

North Korea has recently made a desperate international appeal for food aid. Reports from aid workers and international nongovernmental organizations warn of a major food shortage. As the United States deliberates whether to restart a food aid program in North Korea, it must consider the following questions: Is there a true humanitarian need, can we address the potential risk of food diversion and can a properly monitored program allow us to engage with the vulnerable citizens of one of the most isolated countries in the world?

The United States has paid $25 million of what it owes to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization to show that it is encouraged by the agency's progress in budgetary reforms, a diplomat said at the FAO's Rome headquarters. Washington had withheld payment of its assessments, which amount to a quarter of the agency's budget, in a move to force the organization to make reforms. The $25 million will be applied to the $67.4 million due for 1986 and 1987, the diplomat said.

Seven years after the target was set, the world is far short of cutting in half the number of hungry people by 2015, a new study by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned. "The number of hungry people is expected to decline from around 800 million today to about 440 million in 2030," the Rome-based group said. "The target of the ... World Food Summit in 1996, to reduce the number of hungry by half by 2015, will not even be met by 2030."

Seven years after the target was set, the world is far short of cutting in half the number of hungry people by 2015, a new study by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned. "The number of hungry people is expected to decline from around 800 million today to about 440 million in 2030," the Rome-based group said. "The target of the ... World Food Summit in 1996, to reduce the number of hungry by half by 2015, will not even be met by 2030."

North Korea faces grave food shortages again this year, and food production could drop unless rainfall increases before the harvest, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said. "The current food supply situation still remains precarious," the Rome-based FAO said in a report after a joint FAO-World Food Program mission visited the country from June 20 to July 1.

Edouard Saouma, director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, warned Africa that it is on the path to total destruction of its natural resources. Saouma told delegates from 51 nations in Marrakesh, Morocco, that the continent faces "an extremely serious threat of accelerated, continent-wide environmental decline, with the inevitable outcome in the long term of total depletion."

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said Tuesday that it has approved $9.6 million worth of emergency food aid for refugees in Mexico, Djibouti, Sudan and Uganda. The FAO said Mexico will get food aid worth around $940,000 to help Guatemalan refugees and Djibouti will get food worth around $640,000 to help Ethiopian refugees. It said that aid to Sudan is to help displaced people from the south of the country. Uganda is to get $1.

Afghanistan is teetering on the brink of widespread famine, threatening millions of lives, after a third successive year of drought, the U.N. World Food Program said. A U.N. mission to Afghanistan in May warned that the almost total failure of this year's harvest meant that 5 million people would require food aid to survive, the WFP said.

President Reagan saluted small farmers in the United States and around the world Friday as part of a global observance of World Food Day. "No group of Americans is more deserving of this country's respect and gratitude," Reagan said in a statement broadcast at ceremonies at the Department of Agriculture. World Food Day is observed every year on the anniversary of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

As delegates at a U.N. summit on world hunger debated the risks and benefits of genetically modified crops, agricultural researchers on Wednesday announced a new effort to save unusual strains of food plants from extinction. The move to establish a $260-million endowment to guarantee steady funding for key "gene banks" around the world would preserve a wide variety of food crop seeds, the U.N.-backed group of research organizations said.

Afghanistan is teetering on the brink of widespread famine, threatening millions of lives, after a third successive year of drought, the U.N. World Food Program said. A U.N. mission to Afghanistan in May warned that the almost total failure of this year's harvest meant that 5 million people would require food aid to survive, the WFP said.

The United Nations world food body reached a landmark agreement Sunday to try to preserve the world's diversity of agricultural crops, officials said. The pact followed an anguished debate pitting many poor countries and environmentalists against multinational corporations and wealthier nations.

North Korea faces grave food shortages again this year, and food production could drop unless rainfall increases before the harvest, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said. "The current food supply situation still remains precarious," the Rome-based FAO said in a report after a joint FAO-World Food Program mission visited the country from June 20 to July 1.

The food supply in sub-Saharan Africa is better than it has been in years, despite continuing shortages in some nations plagued by drought, poor harvests and civil strife, says a new report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Food aid and cereal imports are expected to decline by about 58% for the rest of this year, but most of sub-Saharan Africa's four dozen or so nations will still be able to meet their food demands.

The dreaded screwworm, which once ravaged livestock and wildlife in the United States and Mexico, has been eradicated from North Africa by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, a victory that pest control experts say has spared Africa, and probably Europe, a disaster. Weekly for six months, a chartered DC-8 flew from a factory in Mexico to Libya carrying 40 million male screwworm flies that had been sterilized by gamma rays.

Edouard Saouma, director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, warned Africa that it is on the path to total destruction of its natural resources. Saouma told delegates from 51 nations in Marrakesh, Morocco, that the continent faces "an extremely serious threat of accelerated, continent-wide environmental decline, with the inevitable outcome in the long term of total depletion."

A U.N. agency appealed Wednesday for 700,000 tons of food to avert widespread starvation in northern Ethiopia, where as many as 4 million people are threatened by famine. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said its estimate was based on a recent crop survey, which found that serious drought had cut harvests by nearly 80% in Eritrea province and 50% in Eritrea's southern neighbor, Tigre.