At the request of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture of Mongolia (MoFA), a UN Joint Food Security Assessment Mission visited the country from 2 to 20 October 2006. The Mission was composed of FAO, UNICEF and UNDP experts and worked in close collaboration with national counterpart partners. The overall objective of the assessment was to have a better understanding of food security at national, sub-national and household levels and...

An FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission visited Ethiopia from 12 November to 8 December 2006 to estimate the main meher season cereal and pulse production; review the final estimates of the 2005 main meher season and 2006 secondary belg season harvests; forecast the 2007 belg season production; and assess the overall food supply situation for the 2007 marketing year (January/December). Accompanied by experts from the Ministry of Agriculture...

Favourable prospects for 2007 world cereal crops, mainly following expansion of plantings in Europe and North America, coupled with generally satisfactory weather conditions. FAO’s latest estimates put global cereal output in 2006 at just under 2 billion tonnes, 2.7 percent lower than in the previous year but still above average. In percentage terms production of wheat declined the most, then coarse grains, while the reduction for rice is seen to...

An FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission visited southern Sudan from 7 to 29 October 2006 and northern Sudan from 11 November to 5 December 2006 in order to assess the current season’s cereal production, forecast wheat production from areas prepared for planting, and estimate cereal import requirements for the marketing year 2006/07 (November/October). The Mission in both northern and southern Sudan received the full cooperation from all concerned...

The GIEWS Updates are issued by FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) from mid-2004. The updates focus on developing anomalous conditions aimed at providing early warnings, as well as latest and more elaborate information than other GIEWS regular reports on the food security situation of countries, at both national and sub-national levels.

Over the past 20 years the number of standards and certification programmes for agricultural production has grown rapidly. Producers who want to export are confronted not only by a plethora of import regulations, but also within import countries by different niche markets for which specific requirements have to be fulfilled. While the adoption of voluntary standards may grant export opportunities to farmers, they can also be considered barriers to entry...

This report explores how farm productivity affects poverty, and how various factor market constraints affect farm productivity. The empirical analysis draws on representative surveys of farm households in Kilimanjaro and Ruvuma, two cash crop growing regions in the United Republic of Tanzania. Poorer households were found not only to possess fewer assets, but also to be much less productive. Findings show that agricultural productivity directly affects household consumption and hence...

This report has two objectives. It assesses the nature and the extent of vulnerability among rural households in Tanzania with a particular focus on smallholder cash crop growers through exploring all risks, including the decline in commodity prices. It further explores the potential role for market based insurance schemes such as commodity price and weather based insurance to mitigate household vulnerability. The empirical analysis is based on two rounds of...