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AGS NEWSLETTER
This Newsletter covers
all of our activities in 2008, with links to relevant
pages on this web site. It also provides information
on our planned activities for 2009. Please forward it
to others who may be interested in our work. |
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here to read |
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FAO
Diversification Booklets
Issues n.6-13 and new CD-ROM
The FAO Diversification Booklets aim to provide information
on the diverse types of possible diversification and
income generating activities possible at the farm and
local community level. Each booklet focuses on a different
type of farm or non-farm enterprise or technology that
can be adopted by small farms or local enterprise groups.
The target audience for the booklets is people and organizations
that provide advisory, business and technical support
services to small scale-farmers and local communities
in low-and middle-income countries.
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New
Occasional Paper No.23 Market-oriented
agricultural infrastructure: appraisal of public-private
partnerships
This Occasional Paper presents the findings of a study
that appraises and compares different models of public-private
partnership (PPP) in rural infrastructure development.
It contributes to the identification of public-private
models for different categories of market-oriented infrastructure
for agricultural development. It specifically looks
at five types of infrastructure categories: (i) farm
to market roads; (ii) water for irrigation; (iii) wholesale
markets and trading centres; (iv) agroprocessing facilities;
and (v) information and communications technology.
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New CD-Rom:
Marketing
and agribusiness resources brings together many of
the publications on agricultural marketing and agribusiness
published by FAO since 1990.
The publication include training materials for extension
workers and for university students, books on agribusiness
and marketing policy, market information and farm input
marketing and guides on value chains and on the planning
and design of markets.
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New
Occasional Paper No.22 Agricultural
Mechanization in sub-Saharan Africa: time for a new
look
This new Occasional Paper examines the role of agricultural
mechanization in the agricultural and economic development
of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The paper argues that in
the light of global changes and challenges the time
is ripe to reconsider the potential of mechanization
and the priority that needs to be given to it by African
governments and developmental agencies. It purports
the view that if efforts to promote and support mechanization
in SSA are to receive greater attention then it is essential
to rethink the nature of mechanization and how it can
be accelerated. The paper suggests that successful and
sustainable mechanization should not be established
by direct public sector provision of mechanical technologies
and services but rather through creating a conducive
enabling environment for private sector engagement.
It concludes by making the case that efforts to accelerate
mechanization in SSA will require substantial long-term
political and financial commitments in order to effectively
respond to the new challenges facing the continent.
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New
Agrifood System Brief about Supporting
Farmer Compliance with Private Standards now available
In recent years, private sector standards for food products
have rapidly increased in number and compliance with some
of these standards is becoming de-facto necessity to obtain
market access. Certification, as a guarantee of compliance
with these standards, can facilitate access to more lucrative
markets than those for non-certified products. However
compliance with such standards and their certification
are often problematic for developing countries and specially
for smallholder farmers. Many issues affect the participation
of small-scale farmers in markets for certified high-value
products. This policy brief provides an overview of the
issues and a number of policy recommendations for countries
and government, with a focus on private sector standards
related to Good Agricultural Practices (GAP).
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"Contract
Farming Resource Centre" web site is now available
FAO’s Rural Infrastructure and Agro-industries Division
has launched the “Contract Farming Resource Centre”,
a new web site where information on contract farming
is made available to the international community. The
new site is fully accessible at:
www.fao.org/ag/ags/contract-farming.
Users are welcome to send their comments and contributions
of additional information to:
Contract-Farming@fao.org
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New publication:
Promises
and challenges of the informal food sector in developing
countries a joint publication by the Rural Infrastructure
and Agro-Industries Division, and the Nutrition and
Consumer Protection Division.
This publication, addressed to local policy makers,
provides an overview of recent literature on the potential
of the informal food sector to facilitate an affordable
supply of food to urban areas and generate income for
low-income households. The goal is to identify global
patterns and provide policy suggestions as well as topics
for future research. It also discusses examples of good
practices in various countries and draws on discussions
made by an international community of development practitioners
and scholars that met in an international conference
in 2006.
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New occasional papers
published in December 2007:
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Business services in support of farm enterprise development
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Profitability and sustainability of urban and peri-urban
agriculture
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Guidelines for rapid appraisals of agrifood chain performance
in developping countries |
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Agro-industrial
supply chain management: concepts and applications
This publication is an introduction to the
discipline of supply chain management (SCM), with particular
reference to the agro-industrial domain. It
introduces fundamental SCM concepts and illustrates
them with selected agrifood related cases from different
regions of the developing and developed world. SCM concepts
are already consolidated as an essential part of modern
management thinking. Its tools and techniques have helped
companies in traditional areas such as manufacturing
and retailing to achieve unprecedented levels of operational
performance and efficiency in
transaction coordination with suppliers and customers.
Yet, the discipline is still rather incipient in the
agrifood domain. While managerial literature abounds
with textbooks and publications about SCM in general,
publications specific to agrifood enterprises are few
and far between. This manual represents a contribution
to address that gap
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Addressing
the challenges facing agriculture mechanization input
supply and farm product processing
This Technical Report contains the results
of the World Congress on “Agricultural Engineering
for a Better World”, held in September 2006 in
Bonn (Germany). The Congress was co-organized by FAO
Rural Infrastructure and Agro-Industries Division, the
International Commission of Agricultural Engineering
(CIGR), the European Society of Agricultural Engineers
(EurAgEng), and the Max-Eyth Association for Agricultural
Engineering within the Association of German Engineers
(VDI-MEG).
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