Agricultural Development Economics provides technical advice through a range of projects and programmes at country and headquarters level related to food security and policy analysis in agriculture and rural development.

Our activities fall in two main areas:

1. Support governments in establishing and maintaining analytical capacity related to food insecurity and vulnerability.

2. Research and advisory work to deepen our understanding of factors that affect food security and rural development in countries or regions.

Smallholders and rural poverty
Rural households in the developing world are involved in a variety of economic activities, as part of complex livelihood strategies. While agriculture remains important, it is not the sole or sometimes the principal activity of poor people.

Markets, prices and trade
The integration of domestic and international markets and trade liberalisation offer countries the opportunity to participate in bigger export markets. They can also take advantage of the reductions in subsidies of developed countries under trade agreements. 

Food Security Governance and Right to Food
Two elements are fundamental in order to make substantial and rapid progress towards global food security: coherence and convergence among policies and programmes of countries, donors and other stakeholders.

Food security analysis and policy
Decision-makers at country, regional and global levels need reliable and timely information on the incidence and causes of food insecurity, malnutrition and vulnerability for improved policy and programme formulation, targeting, and monitoring of progress of interventions aimed at reducing poverty and hunger.

Food security in emergencies
Work on food security in emergencies focuses on preventing or mitigating crisis; bridging the gap between short and long term responses to crises; and strengthening the resilience of households, livelihoods, communities and countries

Economics of sustainable agriculture
Our work on sustainable agriculture provides analysis and policy insights on how natural resource management can result in enhanced food security, poverty alleviation, and sustainable development.

Long-term perspectives
Global perspective studies are based on a multi-disciplinary approach and draw on contributions from all technical divisions in FAO. Long-term papers and reports are presented on diverse topics, including investment, soaring food prices, biofuels and climate change.