The OPEC Fund for International Development (OPEC Fund) has signed a US$20mn development loan agreement with Malawi to improve the livelihoods of around 1.3 million people living in rural areas
Crops
FAO declares 2021 as International Year of Fruits and Vegetables
The director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, has launched the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables 2021 (IYFV) with a call to improve healthy and sustainable food production through innovation and technology and to reduce food loss and waste
SeeTree raises US$30mn in funding to scale globally and expand into new crops
SeeTree, an AI-powered, end-to-end service that provides growers with intelligence on trees and tree clusters, has raised US$30mn in a Series B funding round led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group
EU-funded ‘ARTOLIO’ project to support small olive oil producers across the Mediterranean
The US$3.5mn ARTOLIO project is coordinated by Israel’s Agricultural Research Organization and sees the participation of nine partner organisations from Cyprus, France, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Palestine and Spain
Rust-resistant bread wheat varieties widely adopted in Ethiopia, study reveals
A study of plant DNA provides strong evidence that farmers in Ethiopia have widely adopted new, improved rust-resistant bread wheat varieties since 2014