By Fernando Álvarez: Ex IMF Economist

In 2011 volatile food prices and the tragedy of another famine in East Africa forced world attention to focus on issues of food and agriculture.  As FAO moved to support farmers and pastoralists in the Horn of Africa and rally international support for long-term measures for reducing vulnerability in the region, it also continued to work on a number of other fronts as well.  One spot of good news — and a bright one at that — was the final eradication of rinderpest, a livestock disease that had plagued farmers for millennia.

 2011 also saw the unveiling of FAO's new "Save and Grow" paradigm for sustainably increasing food production by the world's millions of smallholder farmers. And a new edition of "The State of World Agriculture" highlighted how the gender gap in agriculture handicaps millions of women farmers and undermines the fight against hunger. FAO research shed light on the vast scale of food waste around the world, and a groundbreaking new study provided a unique look at the status of the land and water resources on which global food production depends. In 2011 FAO also provided updates on the status of key global fish stocks and improved information on world deforestation rates.

Satellite technology yields new forest loss estimates

 A new, satellite-based survey by FAO provided new, and more accurate, information on changes in the world's forest cover, showing that forest land use declined between 1990 and 2005.  Scarcity and degradation of land and water represent growing threat to food security, reports major new FAO study
In November, FAO released the first edition of a new flagship publication, "The State of Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture." According to the report, widespread degradation and deepening scarcity of land and water resources have placed key food production systems around the globe at risk, posing a profound challenge to the task of feeding a world population expected to reach 9 billion people by 2050.

World Food Day focuses on swinging food prices

World leaders and international celebrities gathered in Rome to mark World Food Day 2011 with a call for greater investment in agriculture, more support for women farmers, and improved transparency in international agricultural commodity markets.

Food price volatility featuring high prices is likely to continue and possibly increase, making poor farmers, consumers and countries more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity, according to the 2011 edition of "The State of Food Security in the World" report. The heads of the three Rome-based UN food agencies called for concerted international action to address the problem.

Horn of Africa: Funding for agricultural recovery lagging, FAO warns

As world governments met in Ethiopia for an international pledging conference aimed at winning more aid for the Horn of Africa, FAO issued a warning that efforts to keep farmers and pastoralists on their feet, prevent the crisis from worsening, and speed progress toward recovery had not yet received adequate support. In July and August, FAO convened emergency meetings of governments, UN agencies and international organizations to rally support for life saving operations in the Horn of Africa and also stress the need to support farmers and herders in the region to prevent the situation from getting worse.

New fund for livestock biodiversity management launched

A new support fund designed to help developing countries conserve and sustainably use their livestock breeds under the auspices of the internationally-agreed Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources was launched by FAO in July.

In a historic victory of veterinary science, FAO and OIE announced that thanks to a decades-long international cooperative effort, the cattle disease known as rinderpest had successfully been eradicated in the wild. The disease had been the bane of farmers for thousands of years, wiping out the farm animals on which their livelihoods depended.

FAO Member countries elected José Graziano da Silva of Brazil as the next FAO Director-General, starting in January 2012. Current FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf set to step down after 17 years of service.

Drought in Horn of Africa threatens millions

As the situation in East Africa continued to deteriorate, FAO again warned that the number of people facing severe food shortages was set to increase as the impact of drought, along with high food and fuel prices, continued to grip the region.

In June, FAO announced a new initiative intended to produce more food for a growing world population in an environmentally sustainable way. The new approach calls for targeting mainly smallholder farmers in developing countries. Helping low-income farm families in developing countries - some 2.5 billion people - economize on cost of production and build healthy agro-ecosystems will enable them to maximize yields and invest the savings in their health and education. Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year - approximately 1.3 billion tonnes - gets lost or wasted, an FAO-commissioned study reveals.

In the 2011 edition of its annual "State of Food and Agriculture report," FAO focused on the "gender gap" in agriculture. The report's key finding: if women in rural areas had the same access to land, technology, financial services, education and markets as men, agricultural production could be increased and the number of hungry people reduced by 100-150 million. January saw food prices spiking to a historic high, as FAO continued to track trends through its monthly Food Price Index updates.

A new edition of FAO's "The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture" report found that while fisheries production reached a new-time high — thanks mainly to the growth of fish farming — the status of important fish stocks in the wild remained a cause for concern.