The importance of agribusiness

Agribusiness denotes the collective business activities that are performed from farm to fork. It covers the supply of agricultural inputs, the production and transformation of agricultural products and their distribution to final consumers. Agribusiness is one of the main generators of employment and income worldwide.

Agribusiness is characterized by raw materials that are mostly perishable, variable in quality and not regularly available. The sector is subject to stringent regulatory controls on consumer safety, product quality and environmental protection. Traditional production and distribution methods are being replaced by more closely coordinated and better planned linkages between agribusiness firms, farmers, retailers and others in the supply chains.

These are the central issues addressed by FAO's Agribusiness Development Programme, which advises on policies and strategies to improve agribusiness competitiveness, including fostering better coordination and linkages among business partners. It also produces training materials, in particular for small farmers and for managers of agro-processing enterprises who need technical, managerial and business planning training.

Enabling environments

An enabling environment for enterprises to thrive is an essential pre-requisite for economic development. Through the proper set of policies, institutions and services that create a favourable business climate - the enabling environment - many countries have been successfully promoting investments, attracting capital and engendering economic growth. Agribusiness and agro-industrial sectors have not been sufficiently examined in traditional assessments of enabling environments. In order to overcome this gap, FAO has conducted assessments of key factors that contribute to the provision of an enabling environment. These assessments have been discussed in a series of regional workshops. The reports can be downloaded below:

Eastern and Central Europe

Latin America
Africa

In collaboration with the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE), FAO will hold a workshop on “Innovative Policies and Institutions to Support Agro-Industries Development”, as part of the technical program of IAAE’s Triennial Conference of 2009, to be held in Beijing on August 16th 2009. We are now issuing a Call for Papers for this workshop. Grants of up to US$2500 are available to authors who have their papers accepted.