World food prices reach highest level in more than a decade, says FAO

The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks the international prices of a basket of food commodities, is up 3.9 per cent from September, rising for a third consecutive month. 

Feeding the world population is also responsible for about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it a priority in the fight against climate change. 

 The report, Renewable energy for agri-food systems —Towards the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement, shares several examples of how that can be accomplished. Solar irrigation, for example, can improve access to water, enabling multiple cropping cycles and increasing resilience to changing rainfall patterns.

 In India, the use of solar irrigation pumps has raised farmers’ incomes by at least 50 per cent compared to when rain was the only option. 

In Rwanda, smallholder farmers’ yields have grown by about a third. In a video message, FAO Director-General, Qu Dongyu, argued that the report "shows that there are many opportunities to implement renewable energy solutions across agri-food systems."