Biotech Updates

UK Donates £16M to FAO to Improve Agricultural Statistics

April 13, 2012

The United Kingdom, through its Department of International Development Fund (DFID) donated £16M ($25M) to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to support a global initiative to improve agricultural statistics. The program "Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics" will help developing countries produce and use statistics in more effective and sustainable food production.

The donation will be used in the first phase of the program (2012 to 2016) to support African and Asian governments in managing their statistical systems using digital devices such as smartphones, GPS and satellites. The FAO said that developing countries collect data using costly, labor-intensive, and time-consuming systems that sometimes produce unreliable statistic.

FAO Director-General José Graciano da Silva said that "the program provides an example of how the FAO works with farmers to translate global information into concrete results at household, community and country levels."

Read more about this initiative at http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/132897/icode/.