Publications
The State of the World
FAO’s State of the World collection comprises the Organization’s flagship reports. Published annually or biennially, these are data-rich and analytically complex publications: they provide a global snapshot of topics associated with food and agriculture.
The collection is increasingly structured to gauge progress towards the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It is aimed at policymakers; donors; international organizations; academia; and journalists and researchers specializing in food security, agrifood systems, the environment and international development.
The State of Food and Agriculture
Addressing land degradation across landholding scales
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World
Addressing high food price inflation for food security and nutrition
The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture
The potential to produce more and better
The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets
Trade, resilience and food security: Global food markets under stress
The State of Fisheries and Aquaculture
Blue Transformation in action
Recent Publications
The unjust climate: Measuring the impacts of climate change on rural poor, women and youth
03/2024
Developing policies to foster inclusive rural transformation processes requires better evidence on how climate change is affecting the livelihoods and economic behaviours of vulnerable rural people, including women, youths and people living in poverty. In particular, there is little comparative, multi-country and multi-region evidence to understand how exposure to weather shocks and climate change affects the drivers of rural transformation and adaptive actions across different segments of rural societies and in different agro-ecological contexts....
Tackling antimicrobial resistance in food and agriculture
02/2024
This first report on FAO’s contribution to the global response to AMR outlines a wide range of activities undertaken by FAO at global, regional and country level. This report: describes FAO’s role in the global governance of AMR; provides an overview of progress on implementing national action plans on AMR in agrifood systems; and flags key challenges and opportunities related to AMR in the food and agriculture sectors.
The Sudan: Project Highlights - OSRO/SUD/200/USA
01/2024
The Government of the United States of America contributed USD 19 million to strengthen Food Security and Livelihoods sector coordination platforms, increase immediate food access and restore the productive capacities of 598 200 vulnerable farming and pastoral households in the Sudan.
Harvesting change: Harnessing emerging technologies and innovations for agrifood system transformation
12/2023
The study assesses a selection of technologies and innovations, which potentially could be of paramount importance in addressing agrifood challenges until 2050, as well as the most important trends and drivers that will influence the emergence of agrifood technologies and innovations and their triggers of change, including some regional aspects. The goal is also to build plausible future scenarios for the evolvement of the emerging technologies and innovations in the future with the time...
World Food and Agriculture – Statistical Yearbook 2023
12/2023
This publication offers a synthesis of the major factors at play in the global food and agricultural landscape. Statistics are presented in four thematic chapters, covering the economic importance of agricultural activities, inputs, outputs and factors of production, their implications for food security and nutrition and their impacts on the environment. The Yearbook is meant to constitute a primary tool for policymakers, researchers and analysts, as well as the general public interested in the...
Achieving SDG2 without breaching the 1.5C threshold: A Global Roadmap
12/2023
Unveiled at the United Nations Climate Conference COP28, the Global Roadmap for Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2) without Breaching the 1.5°C Threshold outlines a comprehensive strategy spanning the next three years that encompasses a diverse portfolio of solutions across ten distinct domains of action. The roadmap calls for a transformative shift in agrifood systems. It challenges the prevailing narrative that increasing production is synonymous with higher emissions and environmental degradation. Instead, it emphasizes the opportunity within agrifood...
Pathways towards lower emissions: A global assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation options from livestock agrifood systems
12/2023
This FAO report presents a comprehensive global assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock systems, utilizing FAO’s Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM) based on the most recent available data. GLEAM also considers indirect emissions from upstream activities, such as feed and other inputs, and part of the downstream processes including post-farm transport, processing and packaging of raw products. Drawing from an extensive literature review, this publication illustrates pathways towards lower emissions through a...
Loss and damage and agrifood systems: Addressing gaps and challenges
12/2023
The purpose of this report is to stimulate discussions on the central role of agrifood systems in the loss and damage debate and identify the gaps in data, knowledge and finance that need to be addressed. The report provides an overview of the loss and damage concept, the status of analytical methodologies and tools, a summary of the reporting on loss and damage in nationally determined contributions (NDCs), an outline of the policy needs...
CODEX - 60 years of standards
11/2023
The Codex Alimentarius Commission marks its 60th anniversary in 2023. This seventh edition of the CODEX magazine looks back at origins and looks forward to what the future may bring for the international food standard setting. It captures six decades and a year in the life of the Commission and the Codex Secretariat – working to protect health and facilitate trade.
El Niño: Anticipatory Action and Response Plan, October 2023–March 2024
11/2023
The latest forecasts point to a greater than 80 percent chance of El Niño continuing through March–May 2024, following declaration of the onset of El Niño conditions in early July 2023 by the World Meteorological Organization. The strength is expected to be comparable to the top six strongest events in recorded history, increasing the likelihood of extreme weather and climate hazards, ranging from drought to floods and storms. By disrupting rainfall and temperature patterns,...
The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security 2023 - Avoiding and reducing losses through investment in resilience
11/2023
Disasters are resulting in unprecedented levels of destruction across the world. These shocks and disruptions affect the functioning and sustainability of agricultural production and threaten the livelihoods of millions of people reliant on agrifood systems. Reducing the impact of disasters in agriculture requires a better understanding of the extent to which these events produce negative impacts in agriculture and necessitates an investigation into the underlying risks that make agriculture vulnerable to the effects of disasters. The...
The State of Food and Agriculture 2023: Revealing the true cost of food to transform agrifood systems
11/2023
Agrifood systems generate significant benefits to society, including the food that nourishes us and jobs and livelihoods for over a billion people. However, their negative impacts due to unsustainable business-as-usual activities and practices are contributing to climate change, natural resource degradation and the unaffordability of healthy diets. Addressing these negative impacts is challenging, because people, businesses, governments and other stakeholders lack a complete picture of how their activities affect economic, social and environmental sustainability...
FAO-WFP Anticipatory Action Strategy
09/2023
Recognizing that the increasing number of food crises require resources and capacities far beyond the reach of any individual organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) are partnering together to scale up the reach of Anticipatory Action. This means acting ahead of predicted hazards to mitigate acute humanitarian impacts before they fully unfold. The two agencies are committed to further strengthening collaboration on selected strategic...
Tracking progress on food and agriculture-related SDG indicators 2023
09/2023
At the mid-point of the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, there is an urgent need to understand where the world stands in eliminating hunger and food insecurity, as well as in ensuring sustainable agriculture. The new report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), titled Tracking progress on food and agriculture-related SDG indicators, offers analysis and trends on indicators across eight Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – in particular, SDGs 1,...
FAO Action Plan 2022–2025 for the implementation of the FAO Strategy on Climate Change
07/2023
The elements of the Action Plan are derived from the Theory of Change anchored in the Strategy. The Action Plan is therefore articulated around the three pillars and six outcomes of the Strategy. In addition, and with the aim to provide more clarity, action areas have been introduced to cluster the outputs, which are concrete results contributing to each outcome of the Strategy. The outputs are formulated based on the FAO actions listed in...
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The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023
07/2023
This year, the global assessment of the state of food security and nutrition in 2022 reflects a particular moment in history. In 2022, the world was beginning to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic when the war broke out in Ukraine, shaking commodity and energy markets. The pandemic, the ensuing economic rebound, the war in Ukraine, and the soaring prices of food, agricultural inputs and energy due in part to the war have all played...
OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2023-2032
07/2023
The Agricultural Outlook 2023-2032 is a collaborative effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). It brings together the commodity, policy and country expertise of both organisations as well as input from collaborating member countries to provide an annual assessment of the prospects for the coming decade of national, regional and global agricultural commodity markets. The publication consists of 11 Chapters;...
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Food Outlook – Biannual report on global food markets
06/2023
FAO’s latest forecasts point to increases in production and higher stocks across several basic foodstuffs. However, global food production systems remain vulnerable to shocks, stemming from weather conditions, geopolitical tensions and policies, potentially tipping the delicate demand-supply balances, with implications for global food security. Issued twice a year, the November issue of the Food Outlook offers market summaries of FAO’s reviews of market supply and demand trends for the world’s major foodstuffs, namely cereals, oilcrops,...
The 2023 Compendium of Actions and Lessons Learned
05/2023
Since its creation, SPG Coalition members, together and individually, have supported a wide variety of projects to accelerate sustainable productivity growth for the transition to more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive food systems. This compendium highlights a number of these, as submitted by Coalition members. The SPG Coalition provides this compendium to share best practices and lessons learned. It is our hope that the diversity of projects included here will help inspire action by governments,...
Food safety aspects of cell-based food
04/2023
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), has developed this document to engage with respective Members and relevant stakeholders by proactively sharing the current knowledge to identify concrete ways to inform consumers and all other stakeholders about the food safety considerations for cell-based food products.