AGRICULTURE NEWS - A collaboration agreement to safeguard water and soil resources, while fighting desertification, was signed by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the New Development Bank (NDB) on Monday to coincide with the UN’s World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.
FAO director-general José Graziano da Silva and New Development Bank president Kundapur Vaman Kamath signed a formal agreement to jointly help countries achieve their sustainable development goals adopted by all United Nations’ member states in 2015.
The National Development Bank is a multilateral development bank that was established through collaboration between Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS countries) in an effort to combine resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects.
Speaking during the opening of the second International Seminar on Drought and Agriculture at the FAO headquarters in Rome on Monday, Graziano da Silva said: “It is quite impossible to avoid a drought from happening, but we can avoid a drought turning into famine or displacement of people.”
In his speech, he stressed that an estimated 80% of damage and loss caused by drought was absorbed by the agricultural sector.
Read the full article here on the Caxton publication, Farmer's Weekly.
