Policy action

The Policy Optimization Tool (PolOpT), developed by FAO's Agrifood Economics and Policy Division, helps governments make smarter decisions about how public funds are allocated across agrifood policies and sectors. By modelling different budget scenarios, PolOpT identifies spending strategies that can improve economic, social, and environmental outcomes within real fiscal constraints.

A key area where PolOpT can support governments is on healthy diets. By optimizing public spending on food and agriculture, the tool can help make a healthy diet more affordable for more people foods more affordable. This enables policymakers to better align public spending with nutrition goals, while also supporting rural livelihoods, economic growth, and environmental goals.

In this project, the team will work with a handful of countries to optimize their food and agriculture budgets using PolOpT, with the aim of reallocating expenditure to make a healthy diet more affordable for more people.

Key resources

PolOpT in academic journals

Journal of Agricultural Economics (JAE)

11/05/2026

Repurposing agricultural public resources toward higher-return incentives and investments can help transform agri-food systems. This is important for low-income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where limited budgets restrict options for boosting agricultural spending. We demonstrate how, within a tight budget envelope, opportunities exist to achieve better agricultural transformation outcomes. Read more...

Agricultural Economics Society/100th Annual Conference, 23–25 March 2026.

26/03/2026

African governments committed in 2014 to allocate 10% of public spending to agriculture to achieve 6% agricultural GDP growth. Using the Policy Optimization Tool (PolOpT), this study shows that reaching these targets depends not only on spending more, but on spending better. Country-specific, evidence-based allocations can improve agricultural productivity, support healthier diets, and advance broader economic and environmental goals more effectively. Read more...

Global or regional analyses

The opportunity cost of not repurposing public expenditure in food and agriculture in sub‑Saharan African countries – Background paper for The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024. FAO Agricultural Development Economics Working Paper 24-07.

24/10/2024

In this paper, an innovative policy optimization tool (PolOpT) helps us assess what would happen if the limited budget allocated to the crops and livestock sectors in six of the sub-Saharan African countries were reallocated optimally across different policy support measures and subsectors/commodities, under the same budget constraints.

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022. Repurposing food and agricultural policies to make healthy diets more affordable.

14/06/2022

This FAO flagship publication looks at the repurposing food and agricultural policies to make healthy diets more affordable.

Country analyses

Repurposing agriculture's public budget to align healthy diets affordability and agricultural transformation objectives in Ethiopia

07/09/2022

This paper assesses ways in which the government could coherently pursue the objectives of reducing the cost of the least cost healthy diet for Ethiopians and achieving faster inclusive agricultural transformation (IAT), for example by increasing agrifood output, creating rural off-farm employment and reducing rural poverty.

Policy Optimization Tool (PolOpT) brochure

Spending smarter on food and agriculture Spending – Making public spending more effective with FAO's Policy Optimization Tool (PolOpT)

11/12/2025

FAO’s Policy Optimization Tool (PolOpT) empowers governments to reallocate their public budgets on food and agriculture, repurposing limited resources...

Monitoring the cost and affordability of healthy diets for policy action