Mark Yannone - Arizona, District 3, 2004 Congressional Candidate, independent - click to return to home page
Issues - Foreign Aid - Foreign Aid Budget - United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
United States Capitol

"You can safely appeal to the United Nations in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down."

Conor Cruise O'Brien, former UN representative to Katanga
New Republic,
4 Nov 1985
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations was founded in 1945 with a mandate to raise levels of nutrition and standards of living, to improve agricultural productivity, and to better the condition of rural populations. Today, FAO is one of the largest specialized agencies in the United Nations system and the lead agency for agriculture, forestry, fisheries and rural development. An intergovernmental organization, FAO has 183 member countries plus one member organization, the European Community.

Since its inception, FAO has worked to alleviate poverty and hunger by promoting agricultural development, improved nutrition and the pursuit of food security - defined as the access of all people at all times to the food they need for an active and healthy life.

Food production has increased at an unprecedented rate since FAO was founded in 1945, outpacing the doubling of the world's population over the same period. Since the early 1960s, the proportion of hungry people in the developing world has been reduced from more than 50 percent to less than 20 percent. Despite these gains, however, more than 790 million people in the developing world - more than the total population of North America and Western Europe combined - still go hungry.

A specific priority of the Organization is encouraging sustainable agriculture and rural development, a long-term strategy for increasing food production and food security while conserving and managing natural resources. The aim is to meet the needs of both present and future generations by promoting development that does not degrade the environment and is technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable.

As stated on the first page of the FAO website:

Efforts to boost the economy of one of Guatemala's poorest regions through cash cropping threatens the cultural and genetic diversity of the Maya.

Find out more about the UNFAO by clicking HERE

Return to the Foreign Aid/Affairs/Defense budget by clicking HERE
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