FAO Podcasts

There are 68.5 million refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people worldwide, 80 percent of whom rely on woodfuel for cooking and heating. In areas hosting displaced populations, often with scant resources of their own, this reliance on woodfuel is the main driver of forest degradation and deforestation in displacement settings. So how do you balance sustainable forest management with meeting the energy needs of forcibly displaced people?

Studio interview with Arturo Gianvenuti, a Forestry Officer at FAO and Andrea Dekrout, Senior Environmental Coordinator at UNHCR was conducted by Charlotta Lomas.

In this episode we take you to Colombia. We’ll explore how farming and land rights are tied into the country’s quest for sustainable peace after 52 years of civil strife. You’ll hear from the people of Morroa, a community in the district of Sucre. This district is one of five areas in Northern Colombia that have been part of a rural development program that the government is leading to revitalize the local economy. Years of armed conflict between the government and the rebel group FARC left more than 220,000 Colombian dead and it uprooted the lives of over eight million people. Many of those who were caught in the collateral damage of the war were displaced from their homes and lands. FAO’s Nadya Gonzalez went to this region to speak to some of the people who were part of the project.

You can find a transcript of this episode here.

In this episode we are visiting the community of Engarasero, near the border or Kenya and Tanzania. For centuries, semi-nomadic Maasai tribes of East Africa have migrated and herded their cattle through the majestic lands of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. On the northern Tanzanian side, which we will focus on in this podcast, are millions of miles of Maasai-frequented territory. As Maasai tribes have evolved, along with the landscape of the region, Maasai traditions continue to be anchored in agro-pastoralism, which has been reinforced by their ability to cultivate within these difficult, arid drylands. But with Tanzania’s growing population, economic expansion, restructured land use and pressures of climate change on natural resources, modernity and the countries growth have presented challenges for the Massai people. Growth that threatens their ability to sustain themselves.

Around the world, 3 billion people lack access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking. In Africa, charcoal production has doubled in the past two decades and demand is likely to keep growing as more people move to urban centres. It is cleaner and easier to use than firewood, and is often cheaper and more readily available than gas or electricity. But the surge in charcoal use is contributing to forest degradation and in some areas also to deforestation, especially around large urban centers. So, what can be done to make charcoal use more sustainable? To turn black charcoal ‘green’?

A panel of experts join TARGET: Zero hunger podcast host Sandra Ferrari to discuss the issues. 

In this episode, we asked FAO expert Christiane Monsieur to document her trip to a handful of villages in Niger. These villages organize Dimitra Clubs.

In communities all throughout Niger, there’s been a quiet revolution going on through these clubs. Its protagonists are tens of thousands-strong. They organize in local groups of women, men and young people. Their goal? Mobilizing communities to find local solutions to local problems – from stray trash to malnutrition. Their method sounds simple – but has proven to be transformational in hundreds of villages across the country: listening to each other.

In this episode, we explore the relationship between peace and food security. For today’s story, we gave FAO communications officer Karina Coates a recorder to tape her visits to two FAO projects in retaken areas of Iraq. We asked her to help us better understand the impacts conflict in the region has had on agriculture and how FAO is helping farming communities regain stability. Later in the episode, Lucca Russo, an FAO expert on resilience-building, gives some examples from around the world that show why supporting farmers is so key to preventing post-conflict zones from slipping back into war.

Follow us as we take a look at the darker side of seafood: slavery aboard fishing vessels. In this week's episode, we will hear from Rahat, a Thai fisherman who was caught at sea for years before he was finally rescued from an Indonesian island in 2015. We'll also talk with victim advocates and international experts pushing for decent labor standards and stronger inspections aboard these trawlers. Along the way, we'll explore why trafficking and forced work remain so pervasive in the global fishing industry and what fishers stand to gain from a new collaboration between FAO and the International Labor Organization -- a partnership that joins the fight against human trafficking at sea with the fight against illegal fishing.

Speakers in this episode include:

Nicola Smith from the International Transport Workers Federation

Brandt Wagner, head of the Transport and Maritime Unit in the Sectoral Policies Department of the International Labour Organization

Felix Marttin, Fisheries Resource Officer at FAO

Apinya Tajit, victim advocate with the Apostleship of the Sea

Click here for the transcript of this week's episode.

In this week’s episode, we’re doing something a little different. We sent one of our FAO officers into the field and asked him to document his week-long mission to help stem the spread of a crippling fungus troubling the world’s most-traded fruit. We follow FAO plant disease specialist Fazil Dusunceli to Mozambique and South Africa where he meets with banana farmers, disease experts and concerned government workers – who all share one interest: containing the disease. But what does that mean? And what’s at stake for the 36-billion-dollar industry? Not just for the banana companies, but for the local communities who find work on the plantations, and for producers elsewhere on the continent?

Click here for a transcript of this week's episode. 

How can satellites benefit agriculture? That’s the central question In this week’s episode, in which we take a closer look at how remote sensing -- or earth monitoring from space – helps farmers and governments take smarter decisions regarding their agriculture, forestry and fisheries. We’ll hear about a new data partnership between FAO and Google, learn how agriculture experts use satellite data in the field, and how this technology has evolved with the switch from analog to digital.

What do drones have to offer to agriculture? That’s the central question in this week’s episode of TARGET: Zero hunger. We'll take you on a sonic journey to the Philippines, where FAO is using drones to gather detailed land and crop images for disaster preparedness, and then to the U.S. state of Kansas, where one team of researchers is zooming in on invasive bugs with the help of remote-controlled eyes in the sky.