FAO.org

Agroecology has been gaining interest in recent years among governments, research and civil society organizations worldwide and many actors present it as a strategic pathway to transition to sustainable food and agriculture systems for achieving food security and nutrition. Following the First International Symposium on Agroecology for Food Security and Nutrition, held in Rome in 2014, FAO organized a series of regional multistakeholder seminars in Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific, China, Europe and Central Asia, and the Near East and North Africa from 2015 to 2017. These seminars provided many opportunities for exchange and debate and revealed that while the scientific [...]

Gaps between policy and implementation, and limited availability of sex disaggregated data and gender-sensitive indicators to inform sound policies and budgets have kept women marginalized in many sectors. No baselines mean no measurement of progress in effectively implementing the array of commitments towards gender equality and women’s empowerment in agriculture, food security and nutrition, rural development and management of natural resources. This report reveals gender disparities in access to critical agriculture and rural resources, knowledge, opportunities, services and markets. It explores the existing gender relations and gaps in the various sub sectors of agriculture, and their possible causes and impact on food and nutrition [...]

The Conference of the Parties (COP) of UNFCCC is a prime opportunity to communicate FAO’s work on climate change and to liaise with potential partners, at the numerous side events and parallel events organized around the COP. This booklet seeks to raise awareness on the impacts of climate change on food security and nutrition and advocate for the importance of having the agricultural sectors properly considered in climate change mechanisms, policies and finances.

This sourcebook provides an overview of the second, digital edition of the Climate-Smart Agriculture Sourcebook. The new edition includes new findings, case studies and lessons learned. It also takes into account the changes in the landscape of international climate action since the original edition was published in 2013. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – which encompasses the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda – provides an international framework for strong national actions and collective efforts to achieve sustainable development. Climate-smart agriculture, as an approach to achieve sustainable food and agriculture, [...]

E-agriculture or ICT in agriculture holds great promise in providing access to innovative solutions to many challenges faced by smallholder resource-poor farmers. Access to the right information at the right time makes a great impact on the livelihoods of communities involved in agriculture and allied activities. This publication presents case studies in innovative use of emerging technologies to significantly improve the living standards of farming communities.  

 The FAO-ITU E-agriculture strategy guide is actively being used to assist countries in the successful identification, development and implementation of sustainable ICT solutions for agriculture. The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, and connected analytics has great potential to support and address some of the most pressing problems faced by agriculture in terms of access to actionable real-time quality data. Goldman Sachs predicts that the agriculture sector will be the second largest user of drones in the world in the next five years. Sensor networks based on the Internet of things (IoT) are increasingly being used in the [...]

The main objective of this report is to provide a regional synthesis of the current climate change mitigation and adaptation commitments in the agriculture sectors of the Southern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia (SEECA) region, as set forth in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and to identify opportunities for enhancing mitigation and adaptation ambitions, capturing their synergies and leveraging climate finance and international support options in the region. This analysis builds on FAO’s previous regional analysis and enhances its methodology and findings. It aims to guide FAO – and policy makers and practitioners in the region – committed to [...]

This paper, now also available in Chinese, explores the intra-industry trade in ethanol between the United States and Brazil, highlighting the lack of policy alignment and suggesting a “book and claim” system to cater to differing national objectives. See here all FAO Agricultural Development Economics Working Papers.

Strong market interventions and regulations of agricultural products have been part of the import substitution strategy implemented by the previous government until 2015, when the new administration reversed it by opening the market. Throughout the review period (2007-2017), the country prioritized social spending through various programmes, all of which were sustained by the new administration.

As urban food markets have grown rapidly in recent decades, so too have rural–urban food supply chains. Urbanization and higher incomes are shifting dietary patterns away from staples and towards higher-value products (fish, meat, eggs, dairy products, fruits and vegetables, and more processed foods), thus driving transformations upstream in the food system. See the complete series here.