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 2025
publication
The 2025 edition of The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture underscores the urgent challenges of human-induced land degradation, water scarcity, and climate change, and their impact on agricultural productivity and ecosystems.
The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets
Trade, resilience and food security: Global food markets under stress
The State of the World's Forests
Forest pathways for green recovery
The State of Fisheries and Aquaculture
Blue Transformation in action
Recent Publications
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.
Gene editing and agrifood systems
01/2023
Gene-editing technologies represent a promising new tool for plant and animal breeding in low- and middle-income countries. They enhance precision and efficiency over current breeding methods and could lead to rapid development of improved plant varieties and animal breeds.
The future of food and agriculture – Drivers and triggers for transformation
12/2022
This report aims at inspiring strategic thinking and actions to transform agrifood systems towards a sustainable, resilient and inclusive future, by building on both previous reports in the same series as well as on a comprehensive corporate strategic foresight exercise that also nurtured FAO Strategic Framework 2022–31. It analyses major drivers of agrifood systems and explores how their trends could determine alternative futures of agrifood, socioeconomic and environmental systems. The fundamental message of this...
Agrifood Systems Technologies and Innovations Outlook (ATIO)
11/2022
Agrifood system transformation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals requires increased attention to developing, adapting and diffusing impactful science, technology and innovation (STI). Current levels and patterns of STI uptake are inadequate to facilitate needed agrifood system transformations, especially in today's low- and middle-income countries. Moreover, the descriptive and evaluative evidence on current and emergent STI is also insufficiently well understood to permit intentional management of STI to meet the multiple objectives of future...
The State of Food and Agriculture 2022
11/2022
The State of Food and Agriculture 2022 looks into the drivers of agricultural automation, including the more recent digital technologies. Based on 27 case studies, the report analyses the business case for adoption of digital automation technologies in different agricultural production systems across the world. It identifies several barriers preventing inclusive adoption of these technologies, particularly by small-scale producers. Key barriers are low digital literacy and lack of an enabling infrastructure, such as connectivity and...
State of Agricultural Commodity Markets (SOCO) 2022
06/2022
This edition of The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets (SOCO) discusses how trade policies, based on both multilateral and regional approaches, can address today’s challenges for sustainable development. Trade policies in food and agriculture should aim to safeguard global food security, address the trade-offs between economic and environmental objectives, and strengthen the resilience of the global agrifood system to shocks, such as conflicts, pandemics and extreme weather.
State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2022
06/2022
The 2022 edition of The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture coincides with the launch of the Decade of Action to deliver the Global Goals, the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. It presents how these and other equally important United Nations events, such as the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA 2022), are being integrated and supported through Blue Transformation,...
Global Report on Food Crises 2022
05/2022
Globally, levels of hunger remain alarmingly high. In 2021, close to 193 million people were acutely food insecure and in need of urgent assistance across 53 countries/territories, according to the findings of the 2022 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC 2022). This represents an increase of nearly 40 million people compared to the previous high reached in 2020 (reported in the GRFC 2021). The sixth edition of the Global Report on Food Crises is...
State of the World’s Forests 2022
05/2022
Against the backdrop of the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use and the pledge of 140 countries to eliminate forest loss by 2030 and to support restoration and sustainable forestry, the 2022 edition of The State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) explores the potential of three forest pathways for achieving green recovery and tackling multidimensional planetary crises, including climate change and biodiversity loss.