50 Years of Service To Humanity of United Nations - Food For All

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations came into existence on 16th October, 1945 in Quebec, Canada where the representatives of 44 countries signed the FAQ Constitution. FAQ now, is the largest of the UN specialized agencies having a membership of about 170 countries.
The FAQ constitution aims at raising levels of nutrition and standards of living of the peoples, securing improvements in the efficiency of the production and distribution of all food and agriculture products; bettering the condition of rural population; and thus contributing towards an expanding world economy and ensuring humanity\'s freedom from hunger.
2. The organization holds particular appeal for countries such as Pakistan, which have large rural population with agriculture sector as a primary producer based on small farm production, and a country where 80% of the farms are smaller than eight hectors. And where agriculture provides employment to more than 52% of the total work force.
3. Pakistan came into being on August 14,1947. Just after 21 days of its independence Pakistan joined FAQ on September 7,1947. After about 3-1/2 years the first agreement between FAQ and Pakistan was signed on January 17,1951. Since 1951 FAQ has been helping Pakistan in the fields of agriculture policies and planning, development of crops, livestock and fisheries. The programme included components such as farm machinery, storage plants, control of animal diseases, forest and forest industry, census of agriculture, cooperatives, fishing industry and the training of Pakistan agriculture scientists and administrators.
4. So far 163 projects of various sizes with the total expenditure of US$104 million have been implemented. Truly speaking FAQ has contributed a lot in the development of Pakistan\'s agricultural sector. Particularly the FAQ focussed its attention towards the strengthening of institutions, agricultural planning and policy formulation, agricultural research and extension services, integrated rural development programmes, crop sector, livestock and poultry sector, forestry sector and fisheries sector. From these projects some were funded through UNDP some through Trust Fund and remaining through Technical Cooperation Programmes (TCP).
5. Presently FAQ is helping in various fields through 38 projects. 18 projects are being funded by UNDP 10 through Trust Funds and the remaining 10 under TCP. Some projects are for specific provinces/areas while some projects are being carried out on national level. These projects are addressing various priority areas of Pakistan\'s agriculture sector.
(Contributed by: Ministry of Food & Agriculture, Livestock)
To commemorate the occasion Pakistan Post is issuing a stamp of Rs. 1.25 denomination on October 16,1995.