FAO Launches New Data Set to Improve Agriculture and Food Security

The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations launched a new data platform to enhance decision making in the field based on case by case evidence rather than a broad policy covering all fields. 

The FAO said that the new geospatial platform will be used to store data on agriculture, food, socioeconomics, and natural resources. The platform is open for public use and is a part of the UN’s hand in hand initiative which is a program aimed at sustainable agricultural development to not only eradicate poverty but also to eradicate all forms of malnourishment. 

Experts have been calling for initiatives like these for a long time as every year lots of new data shows us how we can further improve the existent policies. Furthermore, the new data set is domain-specific which means it will look at specific problems that may vary region to region. 

For example, Non-availability of food in a region could be due to several reasons and earlier the policies were formed from a very broad point of views which meant that most of the time the actual problems were not addressed. Countries like India have raised these topics, especially on food safety. The new platform will address this concern and will also assess the impact of COVID-19 on agriculture. 

Read More: Food Security for Sustainable National Development

According to FAO, the data set will help with: 

1. Monitoring the use of water in Agriculture to assess agriculture’s impact on it. 

2. Comparing cattle density around the world to human density to map the effects on overgrazing in certain areas. 

3. Assessing aquatic species distribution to analyse the effects of fishing. 

4. Assessing forest resources around the world based on their conversational values. 

The new data will incorporate the Food and Agriculture Organisation Corporate Statistical Database(FAOSTAT) which provides information on over 245 countries and is maintained by the Statistical Division of FAO. The website contains information on 10 domains related to agriculture. 

The FAO also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Islamic Development Bank to share data related to agriculture. The Islamic Development Bank tweeted” IsDB President Dr. Bandar Hajjar and @FAODGDr. QU Dongyu virtually signed an MoU and executive action plan for the exchange of information between @isdb_groupand @FAO, stepping up coordination on joint projects and cooperation on economic empowerment “.

Read More : COVID-19 Brings Food Security in The Spotlight