500 Mils FAO - Silver proof issue

Struck as part of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization coin program, which recruited dozens of national mints throughout the late 1960s and 1970s to issue commemorative pieces promoting agricultural development and food security. Cyprus's participation was a natural fit — the island's economy was still heavily agricultural, and the FAO program offered a politically neutral vehicle for a country navigating the intercommunal tensions that had followed the 1963–64 violence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

The .800 silver proof was issued alongside a base-metal circulation strike of the same type, KM#43.