Territorial markets are essential to the livelihoods and food and nutrition security of populations. These markets are suffering multiple challenges in the current context of COVID-19 related restrictions on travel and transports and global economic slowdown. Against this background, strengthening territorial markets can support food production and access to healthy and nutritious foods. This requires a good understanding of the functioning of these markets. The FAO mapping system for territorial markets has been developed to this scope and implemented in Tanzania as illustrated in this brief.

FAO together with producer organizations, non-governmental organizations (Network of Farmers Organizations and Agricultural Producers of West Africa (ROPPA), La Via Campesina and Terra Nuova) and research institutes (Wageningen University, the  National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) and the Institute for Research and the Promotion of Alternatives in Development (IRPAD), has developed a methodology to map territorial markets. The methodology is in line with the recommendations formulated by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in its publication entitled ‘Connecting small-scale producers to markets’. These guidelines highlight the importance of markets connected to local, national and regional food systems as the markets that are most beneficial to small-scale producers and have the greatest impact in terms of food security and rural economic development.