At the request of the government, a joint FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission (CFSAM) visited the country from 14 November to 2 December 2022 to estimate the 2022 crop production, to forecast the country’s import requirements for 2023 and to estimate the number of food insecure people. The mission’s aim was to provide an accurate picture of the severity and extent of the impact of unfavourable weather conditions...

FAO assesses that 45 countries, including 33 in Africa, nine in Asia, two in Latin America and the Caribbean, and one in Europe, are in need of external assistance for food. Prospects of persisting drought in East Africa raise serious concerns about levels of acute food insecurity, with famine projected to occur among agropastoral households in Somalia. Globally, while international prices have softened, local food prices remain high and continue...

The cereal supply and demand balances included in this report present a subset of data from the FAO/GIEWS Country Cereal Balance System (CCBS). The CCBS is a is a unique database created and continuously kept up to date by the Global Information and Early Warning System on Food and Agriculture (GIEWS) and Basic Foodstuffs teams of the Markets and Trade Division, with data since 1980. It contains annual supply and...

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched an initiative to assess the existing impediments for scaling innovation and technology in food and agriculture (AgTech) and to identify options to improve the enabling environment for AgTech-focused businesses. The initiative offers a tool for decision makers to promote the uptake of AgTech, investment and entrepreneurship in Africa, ultimately to advance agricultural productivity and food security. The first cohort...

International prices of wheat fell again in January, as the short-term outlook for global supplies continued to improve, in particular following latest estimates of larger 2022 outputs in Australia and the Russian Federation than earlier expected. By contrast, international coarse grain prices firmed marginally, mostly reflecting the continued strong demand for maize supplies from Brazil. For rice, tighter availabilities, strong local demand in some Asian exporting countries and exchange rate...

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the Russian–Ukrainian conflict, which began in February 2022, have tested the resilience of the food and agricultural trade network at a global level. The global dimension of these crises meets a policy landscape in which multilateral trade negotiations have largely stalled and regional approaches to trade integration are proliferating rapidly. Based on network analysis, this paper explores the evolution of the...

The FAO-led project "Building responsible global value chains for the sustainable production and trade of tropical fruits" (GCP/GLO/022/GER) (the Responsible Fruit Project) supports industry actors in the avocado and pineapple sectors in developing risk-based due diligence systems to help them become more sustainable and resilient to shocks, such as climate-related events, pest outbreaks and economic recessions. Due diligence helps companies to avoid activities along their entire value chains that have negative...