Publications
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
20/12/2024
Repurposing public support to food and agriculture has gained significant global attention. In this paper, an innovative policy optimization modelling tool 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 constraint.
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Spending smarter on food and agriculture – Making public spending more effective with FAO's policy optimization tool (PolOpT)
11/12/2024
FAO’s Policy Optimization Tool (PolOpT) empowers governments to reallocate their public budgets on food and agriculture, repurposing limited resources into powerful drivers of change to achieve more agricultural transformation, and better food security and nutrition in an era of tight fiscal constraints. Find out more about PolOpT.
Optimizing public spending on food and agriculture: A gamechanger in lower-income countries
02/12/2024
While transforming agricultural policies is a key priority for lower-income countries, there is still a long road ahead to optimize their tight budgets and public support for agriculture. FAO's Marco V. Sánchez highlights the need to repurpose agricultural support and policies to transform food systems in lower-income countries in this article for ISSD's Trade and Sustainability Review.
Enhancing Uganda's dairy export edge – A comprehensive competitiveness analysis
29/11/2024
The report looks at the country’s dairy export competitiveness in terms of specialization patterns, export growth, export-relative prices, and where Ugandan dairy firms figure on the competitiveness ladder. It also analyses Uganda’s dairy imports, as well as the characteristics of Ugandan exporting and importing firms, and discusses informal trade in dairy.
Fair prices for Irish potatoes in Rwanda – A new price-setting mechanism
29/04/2024
Rwanda is home to around 300 000 Irish potato smallholder farmers and is one of the top ten producers of Irish potatoes in Africa, with an estimated production of about 908 000 tonnes in 2022. However, market prices have risen so much so that they doubled in price from RWF 262 per kg in 2021 to RWF 561 per kg in 2023. The study recommends a new formula to calculate a reference price as well as other recommendations.
Identifying commodity-specific priority investments in selected districts of Uganda
10/05/2023
Building on the previous work by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) supporting the identification of priority agricultural sectors and possible locations with high agricultural transformation potential in Uganda, this technical study provides more granular information from Ugandan farmers and district agriculture officers on which investments are needed the most to increase productivity.
Analysing beef price incentives to strengthen policies for production and exports in Uganda
13/03/2023
In Uganda, 58 percent of households depend on livestock for their livelihoods, with cattle being the most important livestock subsector in the country. Despite natural pastures, water resources, and big demand in national and world...
An ecosystemic framework for analysing evidence-informed policy systems for agricultural transformation: A Case Study of Benin
28/02/2023
The production and use of evidence for agricultural policy is critical to prioritizing and targeting effective agricultural transformation reforms in African countries. International development organizations have supported programmes that promote evidence-informed policies, however, this support...
Towards a more sustainable supply and use of evidence in agricultural policy in Benin
28/02/2023
The production and use of evidence for agricultural policy is critical to prioritizing and targeting effective agricultural transformation reforms in African countries. International development organizations, like FAO, have supported programmes that promote evidence-informed policies. This...
Analysing milk price incentives to strengthen policies for dairy production and exports in Uganda
28/12/2022
The dairy sector accounts for 6.5 percent of Uganda’s agricultural gross domestic product and is a key industry outlined in Uganda’s Third National Development Plan. Dairy export revenues reached a record high of UGX 358.6...