Month: September 2022

Rome/Stockholm -An innovative water management tool will expand to become available around the world thanks to a contribution from the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Netherlands to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

FAO has developed and used data and information presented in a portal, known as WaPOR – Water Productivity through Open Access of Remotely sensed derived data – to provide near real-time data that can be used for a range of applications in agriculture and water resources management. The portal presently offers data that, at the coarser resolution, covers Africa and the Middle East.

The WaPOR project, centered on the database, works closely with 10 partner-countries to help build their capacity to use the data for optimizing water management and policy needs.

The additional funding of $4.95 million , announced today at World Water Week in Stockholm, will allow for a global expansion of the database and the addition of two new partner-countries in Asia and Latin America.

“This portal is proving of great use in ensuring that agricultural water resources are managed sustainably. Already in high demand, scaling it up to a global level is a challenge we are eager to lead,” said Lifeng Li, Director of FAO’s Land and Water Division.

As seen through the historical drought in many Asian and European countries this year, sustainable water use is a key component of achieving food security, especially with increasingly frequent extreme climate conditions and increased water scarcity. Earth observation technologies allow for a variety of uses including the monitoring of water use patterns for agricultural production and can help ensure that this precious resource, especially irrigation water, is best harnessed.

“Water is the key enabler of the transition towards sustainable food systems and improved water governance is needed,” said Kitty van der Heijden, Director-General International Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. That’s the reason we are keen to invest in knowledge and open data. We notice that the WaPOR has impact; it is increasingly used by both public and private sectors”

“Making WaPOR globally accessible is a very welcome opportunity and will bring enhanced information, including on trends in vegetation growth and water stress, to more farmers in developing countries,” said Jippe Hoogeveen, team leader for FAO’s WaPOR project.

What WaPOR does

WaPOR processes satellite data to provide information that can help farmers achieve higher, more reliable agricultural yields, allow for the optimization of irrigation systems. Globally, agriculture accounts for 72 percent of all fresh water withdrawn from rivers, aquifers, and lakes; therefore, it is a major water user. In attempting to find the best way to use this limited resource in a global context of water scarcity and erratic weather events, focusing solutions on agriculture is a winning course of action. Fostering a technological tool with near real-time information, a digital public good to enhance water productivity, is an increasing imperative. , and being implemented with pastoralist communities in Burkina Faso and Mali and soon in Iraq.

Among other data, WaPOR provides evapotranspiration data, relating to a key phase in the natural water cycle consisting of water that directly evaporates into the atmosphere and water that returns to the atmosphere after moving through a plant and emerging as vapor exuded by foliage. This metric offers an accurate assessment of how much water a crop consumes during any given period, such as a growing season. When related to the biomass and harvestable crop yield, it offers a way to measure the water productivity, which is a measure of output in relation to water used as input, and of specific crops in specific places. The tool produces maps – which show biomass and its yield per cubic meter of water. In short, water productivity is offered at scales as fine as 30-meter grids which is updated every one to 10 days, with data queries going as far back as 2009.

WaPOR is applicable in a variety of contexts such as in the assessment of irrigation performance of a sugarcane estate in Mozambique; the assessment of water resources in the Nile River basin (in a water accounting process); the monitoring of conflict impact on agricultural areas in Syria. Currently, WaPOR data is being used in Mali and Burkina Faso, in combination with local data, to assist transhumant herders in assessing animal feed production.

In 2020 WaPOR was presented during the International Conference “Artificial Intelligence (AI), Food for All”, where it was showcased as concrete example of using artificial intelligence to support decision makers in facing the global agri-environmental challenges and to help farmers produce more nutritious food with less water. At this year’s World Water Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, WaPOR was recognised as a Dakar 2022 Initiative project, recognizing its real economic, social and environmental values and the positive impacts on the lives of populations.

Source: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations

Africa’s nations must develop strategies to address climate change, which poses an existential threat to the continent’s megacities, Gabon’s President Ali Bongo Ondimba said at the third Africa Climate Week conference.

African officials and experts should sharpen the positions they will present at the 27th annual United Nations climate conference to be held in Egypt in November, said Bongo.

The third African climate meeting is bringing together more than 1,000 government officials and stakeholders in Gabon’s capital Libreville. They are working to form strong African regional climate responses.

“Climate change is a profound challenge in Africa and a great challenge of our time, amplifying existing social, political and economic inequalities,” Patricia Scotland, secretary-general of the Commonwealth group of former British colonies, said to the meeting.

The African climate week comes as the continent reels from several extreme weather events such as drought in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, sandstorms and extreme heat in West Africa’s Sahel region, and destructive flash floods, storm surges including cyclones in central, western and southern Africa.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who will host the upcoming U.N. conference, lamented that promises made to African countries to help them fight climate change have not been fulfilled.

“The international community is lagging behind in mitigation, adaptation and finance. Several pledges on mitigation and adaptation finance celebrated in Glasgow are yet to be delivered,” said Shoukry.

He said the “backtracking on commitments by many developed countries is a matter of concern” for many African countries. “The delayed delivery of climate finance continues to affect Africa’s efforts to contribute to the global effort against climate change,” he said.

The African climate week conference will discuss other critical concerns of the continent including food security, carbon markets, climate migrants, and coastal resilience. Climate early warning systems, integrated water management to address scarcity and international cooperation to boost climate action are also issues to be examined.

Source: Voice of America

Rome – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) today welcomed an $83 million contribution from the United States of America designed to bolster the agency’s emergency and resilience programmes in Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Sudan, as well as in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Burkina Faso, the Sahel and the West Africa region.

It follows a recent commitment of $80 million from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) specifically focused on improving food security and nutrition in Afghanistan.

“We are grateful to the United States of America for this important contribution towards FAO’s mandate,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu. “Safeguarding the rural livelihoods of the vulnerable is central to averting catastrophe and saving lives through the development of local production. Such funding is critical to respond agilely and at scale in food crisis contexts.”

Given its mandate to end hunger, its longstanding country presence, and its substantial expertise and experience in both humanitarian and development contexts, FAO has a unique role to play in preventing and addressing acute hunger and supporting countries that are experiencing food crises return to a path of growth and prosperity.

Protecting livelihoods by providing emergency agricultural assistance from the onset of a crisis enables people to produce food and earn an income, while a rapid and efficient response to agricultural threats and emergencies saves lives, promotes recovery and reduces the gap between dependency on food assistance and self-reliance.

The new contribution was announced by Ambassador Cindy McCain, Permanent Representative of the United States of America to the UN agencies in Rome. The funds are designed to improve the availability and access to food in crises contexts, by supplying aid and technical assistance to smallholder farmers and livestock-dependent communities, focusing on crop and livestock production.

The Unites States of America has been the largest resource partner of FAO’s humanitarian and resilience programme since 2017. The latest contribution, part of the annual support from USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, represents a three-fold increase in funds from the previous year.

Bolstering emergency and resilience efforts

FAO’s work in Ethiopia stands to receive $32 million in emergency support to improve crop production in the Tigray region, where conflict is a key driver of severe food shortages.

FAO is already scaling up the urgent delivery of fertilizers in the northern Ethiopian region to help farmers sow their fields in the midst of the crucial planting season. The new funds will facilitate the targeted distribution of agricultural inputs, such as fertilizers and seeds, and the training of 344 000 households (involving an estimated 1 720 000 people) on fertilizer application and handling, good agronomic practices, post-harvest handling and value addition.

A further $30 million of the USA contribution announced today have been earmarked for emergency livelihood assistance to safeguard food and nutrition security in Afghanistan, where local food production and the incomes of the most vulnerable rural families have been affected by multiple shocks, including back-to-back droughts and a deepening economic crisis.

More than 70 percent of Afghans live in rural areas, and millions of men, women and children could face catastrophe in 2022 unless agriculture and livestock production are continuously supported.

FAO plans to use the funds there to improve the food and nutrition security status of 2 065 000 vulnerable and marginalized people through the distribution of winter wheat cultivation packages, a livestock protection package for herders in areas affected by drought, and multi-purpose cash transfers to households without access to land and limited labour force within the family.

An additional $15 million have been earmarked to bolster food security and livelihoods in Sudan, while the remaining amounts will target people in need in Burkina Faso and the region of West Africa and help mitigate the impact of an outbreak of African Swine Fever in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Source: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations