This brief explores new evidence on the relationships between social protection and farmer resilience to drought-related shocks through adopting adaptive agricultural practices. The main aim is to identify challenges and opportunities to implement integrated strategies to upscale their impact on building climate resilience.

The findings in this brief have been adapted from the FAO Agricultural Development Economics Working Paper 22-08 "Enhancing refugees’ self-reliance in Uganda – The role of cash and food assistance" (available at https://doi.org/10.4060/cc1838en). Rethinking the land-based self-reliance model is essential to support refugees’ integration and to build their self-reliance in the long-term. The transition toward a refugee policy that focuses on a broader food value chain development and off-farm activities’ enhancement is also recommended to reach both short- and long-term development. [...]

This brief suggests that by integrating climate risk management objectives with social protection instruments, it is possible to improve the livelihood conditions of vulnerable groups while reducing their sensitivity to climate related shocks.

This policy brief, prepared by the FAO Economic and Policy Analysis of Climate Change (EPIC), aims to analyse the relationships and policy options in regard to migration, cash crops and deforestation in Uganda. In particular, it shows that: – the expansion of cash crop activities significantly drives deforestation in Uganda; - migrants who produce cash crops contribute to deforestation significantly more than locals; - improving coordination between interventions on forests, agriculture and land use, and securing land rights is crucial in order to [...]

This brief reviews some of the main land use contraints to reducing agriculture-led forest loss in Viet Nam. We find that agricultural land use constraints increase agriculture-driven pressure on forests. Farmers producing high-value crops have more incentives to deforest, and this increase when operating in areas with land use constrains. Removing land use constraints, repurposing agricultural support and reinforcing environmental regulations would improve agricultural productivity, sustainability and climate resilience, while reducing pressure on forests. The findings in this brief have [...]

Climate change is leading to a rise in global temperatures, which poses a major threat to agriculture production, and to the welfare of smallholder farmers. Identifying sustainable farming practices to reduce the sensitivity of Ugandan agriculture to rising temperatures is critical for safeguarding the livelihoods of farmers. This brief provides evidence on the positive impacts of organic fertilizer application, coffee-banana intercropping and cereal-legume intercropping on crop production value under conditions of high temperatures, and considers policy options to support their [...]

By analyzing agri-food value chains, policy makers and researchers are able to better understand how economic, social and environmental dimensions are intertwined. This is an important step, which allows for identification of areas for potential improvement along an agri-food value chain. EX-ACT Value Chain (EX-ACT VC) is derived from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) EX-Ante Carbon-balance Tool (EX-ACT). The tool is based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methodology to account for GHG [...]

Supporting smallholder farmers to adapt to climate change is essential for achieving Sustainable Development Goals 1 (No poverty) and 2 (Zero hunger). This will require policies and programs that enable farmers with few resources to adopt farm practices and technologies that reduce sensitivity to rising temperatures, the spread of new pests and diseases, and increasingly erratic rainfall. This brief consolidates evidence and stylized facts to guide policy discussions on climate adaptation in smallholder agriculture, based on work carried out by [...]

This brief explores the evidence on the relationships between food aid transfers and investments in climate adaptive agriculture using data from Ethiopia, Malawi and United Republic of Tanzania. Four climate adaptive agricultural investments are considered, namely: adoption of cereal-legume intercropping, use of organic fertilizers such as manure and compost, construction of soil and water conservation structures in fields, and investments in livestock diversification. These practices differ in their levels of capital and labour intensity,and their appropriateness for farmers will vary [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a profound negative effect on the global economy and is occurring in the context of a rapidly changing climate. This year is expected to be the second hottest in recorded history. Weather forecasts for 2020 indicate a high probability that extreme weather will adversely affect food production in many countries. This brief draws on historical evidence and demonstrates that reductions in national food availability caused by severe weather events tend to be considerably larger in [...]