FAO Podcasts

In this week’s episode of TARGET: Zero Hunger we explore the power of pollinators.

For centuries, bees and other pollinators have labored the world’s fields without winning much recognition for their many contributions to food production. You will hear from Barbara Gemmill-Herren. She spearheaded an FAO-led study into the connection between pollination and crop yield that has been published recently in the magazine Science. Then we will take you to Ghana, West Africa, where our team from the FAO office in Accra drove across the country to visit with Peter Kwapong, Director and Founder of the International Stingless Bee Centre in Cape Coast.

Brazil's Pantanal region is the world’s largest tropical wetland, with a biodiversity and local culture so rich that it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site. In this week’s episode we take you deep into this region to explore what conserving the genetic heritage of one local animal breed means for this special ecosystem, for local culture and traditions, and for food security on an increasingly harsher planet.  Along the way, we hear from researchers at EMBRAPA and the State University of Mato Grosso do Sul who are trying to bring back this unique cattle breed from the edge of extinction, and from a cattle farmers who's family's connection to the Pantaneiro goes back four generations.

Photo: FAO/S. Larrain

In the fourth episode of TARGET: Zero Hunger we walk you through some fertile ground by digging into the ideas and perceptions concerning one of our world’s most powerful super foods. We explore why pulses have become an orphan crop and we’ll talk to some of the people trying hard to change that.

In this episode, we hear Paulina Ceballos from the Global Pulse Confederation explain the trouble with the word "pulse" and why we should celebrate the international year; Food critic and writer Saúl Cepeda speak about the culture of pulses in modern cuisine; Farmer and board member to the World Farmers Organization, Fritz Glauser, explains the benefits of planting pulses; FAO's Teo Calles explains why pulses are good for food security and sheds light on an interesting fact about the international trade of pulses crops.

In this week’s episode of TARGET: Zero Hunger, we take a closer look at a set of tools that in many ways influence what the future of agriculture will look like. And that set of tools is biotechnology.

What kind of biotechnologies are available today and how can they benefit smallholder farmers in the developing world? In February this year, some 400 scientist, farmers, policy makers and industry representatives gathered at the International Symposium on Agricultural Biotechnologies held at FAO headquarters in Rome to answer that question. In this episode, we hear voices from the symposium and review the key issues and technologies at the heart of the global conversation about biotech’s role in sustainable food systems and nutrition.

In this second episode of TARGET: Zero Hunger we delve in to the $50-billion world of food fraud and the science used to expose it -- to discover that our food has finger prints.

Our journey into the authenticity of food takes us from a small cheese shop in Italy to Austria where we explore how FAO and the International Atomic Energy Agency collaborate on nuclear technology for food and agriculture. We'll also hear stories about the rice fields of India and Pakistan. Along the way we talk to producers, scientists and food safety experts about the importance of true food and the role of isotopes as the tiniest of allies in the global fight against fraud.

Photo: ©FAO/Alessia Pierdomenica

In this first episode of TARGET: Zero Hunger, we explore FAO’s work in emergencies and what it takes to help families produce food in some of the most difficult crisis regions in the world. 

FAO Communications officer Like Visser takes us deep into the Nyal region of South Sudan, where people have been struggling with severe food insecurity for months; and we speak to Etienne Peterschmitt, who leads FAO’s emergency response to the crisis in Yemen, about the day-to-day realities of supporting food production in an active conflict zone. We also talk to Toby Lanzer, the UN’s Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, and with Vincent Martin, Coordinator of FAO’s resilience team in West Africa and the Sahel, about what it's like to build an emergency response plan for a region of 150 million people.

Along the way, they help answer why investing in agriculture in crisis regions is not only key to saving the lives and livelihoods of people facing hunger, but for securing a decent future for generation of young people growing up in rural areas.

Photo: ©FAO/Issouf Sanogo