The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)[Note 1] is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. Its Latin motto, fiat panis, translates to "let there be bread". It was founded on 16 October 1945.The FAO is composed of 195 members (including 194 countries and the European Union). It is headquartered in Rome, Italy, and maintains regional and field offices around the world, operating in over 130 countries. It helps governments and development agencies coordinate their activities to improve and develop agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and land and water resources. It also conducts research, provides technical assistance to projects, operates educational and training programs, and collects data on agricultural output, production, and development.The FAO is governed by a biennial conference representing each member country and the European Union, which elects a 49-member executive council. The Director-General, currently Qu Dongyu of China, serves as the chief administrative officer. There are various committees governing matters such as finance, programs, agriculture, and fisheries.
The FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56, which was first published in 1998, has been widely recognized as a comprehensive guidebook for estimating crop evapotranspiration and calculating crop water requirements under various conditions, supporting the efficient management of water resources in agriculture. Over the past twenty-eight years, science and technology have significantly evolved in agricultural productivity and water resource mobilization, use, and management, as well as in research advances, data availability and management, and modeling capabilities and uses. However, these improvements have come against a backdrop of increasingly pressing challenges, especially those posed by climate change and water scarcity. Thus, considering all recent advances in knowledge, an updated version (FAO56 Rev.1) of that guidebook was recently released. The current article summarizes and highlights the main features and innovations that the revision has incorporated.
Lumpy skin disease (LSD) is a contagious transboundary viral infection affecting cattle and buffaloes, with significant economic implications for the livestock industry. The disease was first detected in Pakistan in October 2021 in Jamshoro district, Sindh, and subsequently spread across the country. In this study, we evaluated six LSD outbreaks in the Pishin district of Balochistan to examine clinical signs, and collected seven samples for diagnostic confirmation. We performed molecular characterization of the isolates by analyzing the complete RPO30 gene. This study investigated the origin and phylogenetic relationships of lumpy skin disease Virus (LSDV) isolates by aligning the obtained sequences with representative LSDV strains from various geographical regions. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that all the Pakistani LSDV sequences grouped within sub-group II (SGII), together with field strains previously reported in Bangladesh and India from 2019 to 2023. This study provides the preliminary molecular evidence of LSD outbreaks in the Balochistan province, highlighting the critical need for continuing surveillance, monitoring and regulatory measures for LSD in Pakistan.
Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere in a changing climate is critical to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe and synthesise datasets and methodologies to quantify the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO2 emissions (EFOS) are based on energy and cement production data. Emissions from land-use change (ELUC) are estimated by bookkeeping models based on land-use data. The global atmospheric CO2 growth rate (GATM) is computed from changes in concentration measured at surface stations. The global net uptake of CO2 by the ocean (SOCEAN) is estimated with global ocean biogeochemistry models and observation-based fCO2-products. The global net uptake of CO2 by the land (SLAND) is estimated with dynamic global vegetation models. Additional lines of evidence are provided by atmospheric inversions, atmospheric oxygen measurements, ocean interior observation-based estimates, and Earth System Models. This year, we introduced corrections on the ELUC, SOCEAN and SLAND estimates. The sum of all sources and sinks results in the carbon budget imbalance (BIM), a measure of imperfect data and incomplete understanding of the contemporary carbon cycle. All uncertainties are reported as ± 1σ. For the year 2024, EFOS increased by 1.1 % relative to 2023, with fossil emissions at 10.3 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1 (including the cement carbonation sink, 0.2 GtC yr−1), ELUC was 1.3 ± 0.7 GtC yr−1, for total anthropogenic CO2 emissions of 11.6 ± 0.9 GtC yr−1 (42.4 ± 3.2 GtCO2 yr−1). Also, for 2024, GATM was 7.9 ± 0.2 GtC yr−1 (3.73 ± 0.1 ppm yr−1), 2.2 GtC above the 2023 growth rate. SOCEAN was 3.4 ± 0.4 GtC yr−1 and SLAND was 1.9 ± 1.1 GtC yr−1, leaving a large negative BIM (−1.7 GtC yr−1), suggesting that the total sink or GATM is strongly overestimated in 2024. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration averaged over 2024 reached 422.8 ± 0.1 ppm. Preliminary data for 2025 suggest an increase in EFOS relative to 2024 of +1.0 % (0.2 % to 1.7 %) globally, and atmospheric CO2 concentration increasing by 2.1 ppm reaching 425.6 ppm, 53 % above the pre-industrial level (around 278 ppm in 1750). Overall, the mean and trend in the components of the global carbon budget are consistently estimated over the period 1959–2024, with a near-zero overall budget imbalance, although discrepancies of up to around 1 GtC yr−1 persist for the representation of annual to decadal variability in CO2 fluxes. Comparison of estimates from multiple approaches and observations shows: (1) a persistent large uncertainty in the estimate of land-use change emissions, (2) a low agreement between the different methods on the magnitude of the land CO2 flux in the northern extra-tropics, and (3) a discrepancy between the different methods on the mean ocean sink. This living data update documents changes in methods and datasets applied to this most-recent global carbon budget as well as evolving community understanding of the global carbon cycle. The data presented in this work are available at https://doi.org/10.18160/GCP-2025 (Friedlingstein et al., 2025c).
Despite rapid growth in the availability and consumption of alternative animal source foods (Alt-ASFs), evidence remains fragmented and uneven across food types, outcomes, and settings, with few studies directly comparing their nutritional quality and health impacts with those of conventional animal products in equivalent substitutions-creating uncertainty for dietary guidance and policy. This scoping review addresses these gaps by systematically evaluating 247 studies comparing the nutritional quality and health impacts of Alt-ASFs with those of conventional animal products. Alt-ASFs showed mixed nutritional profiles. Plant-based and fungi-based alternatives generally provided high fibre and low saturated fat, with improvements in lipid profiles and cardiovascular markers. However, plant-based and fungi-based alternatives typically contained low bioavailable protein (except soy milk), vitamin B12, zinc, and iron. Plant-based milks, except fortified soy, were nutritionally inferior to cow's milk, particularly in terms of protein and key micronutrients. Insect-based foods showed diverse nutritional profiles, and in some cases, they provided protein and mineral contents similar or superior to those of conventional meats. Research was overwhelmingly concentrated in high-income countries (76%), with no studies conducted in low-income settings. Considerable gaps remain in the evidence base for algae-based and cell-based foods, long-term health outcomes, and underserved populations. Although Alt-ASFs offer promise for supporting healthy and sustainable diets, their integration into dietary patterns requires careful consideration, and potentially incorporation of complementary food choices or targeted fortification, to prevent nutrient inadequacies, particularly among nutritionally at-risk groups.
Detecting global fishing activity is essential for sustainable ocean governance, yet systems based on vessel-transmitted information, such as Automatic Identification System (AIS) and Vessel Monitoring Systems, are limited by access issues, coverage gaps, and the inability to detect non-cooperative vessels. To overcome these issues, this paper presents Point-to-Fishing (P2F), an AI-driven workflow to detect fishing areas and estimate fishing hours from Navigation Radar Detector (NRD) data of satellite or terrestrial systems, complemented with currents and bathymetry data from Copernicus and GEBCO. P2F integrates analytical components based on statistical analysis, machine learning, and deep learning to conduct vessel behaviour analysis, spatial feature extraction (vessel abundance, recurrence, current-driven interpolation, and bathymetric suitability), and anomaly detection. The workflow operates effectively with or without vessel identifiers, enabling the detection of fishing areas in data-sparse or AIS-denied regions, even using one satellite only. P2F is validated on data covering the North Sea, the Western Norwegian Sea, and the North Atlantic. The validation cases utilise terrestrial and satellite NRD data alternately, with the Global Fishing Watch fishing effort distributions as a validation reference. P2F achieves a consistent similar to 75% agreement in relevant fishing area classification and intense-fishing area identification, and similar to 93% accuracy in total fishing effort estimation.
