Food and Agriculture Organization
international organization with the objective of ending hunger

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 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 in Quebec City, Canada.
The FAO comprises 194 members, including 193 countries and one member organization, the European Union (EU). Its headquarters is in Rome, Italy, and it maintains regional and field offices worldwide, 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 agricultural output, production, and development data.
The FAO is governed by a biennial conference representing each member country and the EU, which elects a 49-member executive council. As of 2019, the director-general is Qu Dongyu of China, who serves as the chief administrative officer. Various committees govern matters such as finance, programs, agriculture, and fisheries.
The public source identifies “Food and Agriculture Organization” as international organization with the objective of ending hunger. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Food, Agriculture and Organization.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Food and Agriculture Organization”, the useful work is to connect “international organization with the objective of ending hunger” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q82151. VIAF identifies the subject as 148396178. The Library of Congress control number is n80004214. 4 of 12 selected statements include explicit references; 7 carry qualifiers and 2 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945 and 2019.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Food and Agriculture Organization”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Food and Agriculture Organization primary sources, Food and Agriculture Organization archive and Food research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Food and Agriculture Organization”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Food and Agriculture Organization” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.