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
Print Send Ukraine: Note on the impact of the war on food security in Ukraine
03/2022
FAO is deeply concerned about the food security situation in Ukraine. The war that began on 24 February 2022 has caused extensive damage and loss of life in key population centres, spread across rural areas, and sparked massive displacement. It is clear that the war has resulted in a massive, and deteriorating, food security challenge. It has already significantly disrupted livelihoods during the agricultural growing season, through physical access constraints and damage to homes,...
The FAO Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance 2021–2025
12/2021
This document outlines the FAO Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance 2021–2025 which serves as a roadmap for focusing global efforts to address AMR in the food and agriculture sectors. The aim of this plan is to help accelerate progress in developing and implementing multi-sectoral National Action Plans to tackle AMR by calling attention to strategic priorities and areas of expertise for FAO support.
State of the World’s Land & Water Resources for Food and Agriculture
12/2021
“The state of the world’s land and water resources for food and agriculture: Systems at breaking point (SOLAW 2021)” Synthesis Report comes at a time when human pressures on the systems of land, soils and fresh water are intensifying, just when they are being pushed to their productive limits. The impacts of climate change are already constraining rainfed and irrigated production over and above the environmental consequences resulting from decades of unsustainable use.
The State of Food and Agriculture 2021
11/2021
The State of Food and Agriculture 2021 presents country-level indicators of the resilience of agrifood systems. The indicators measure the robustness of primary production and food availability, as well as physical and economic access to food. They can thus help assess the capacity of national agrifood systems to absorb shocks and stresses, a key aspect of resilience.
Hunger Hotspots FAO-WFP
07/2021
Efforts to fight a global surge in acute food insecurity are being stymied in several countries by fighting and blockades that cut off life-saving aid to families on the brink of famine, warn the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) Hunger Hotspots FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity August to November 2021 Outlook.
State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021
07/2021
In recent years, several major drivers have put the world off track to ending world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. The challenges have grown with the COVID-19 pandemic and related containment measures. This report presents the first global assessment of food insecurity and malnutrition for 2020 and offers some indication of what hunger might look like by 2030 in a scenario further complicated by the enduring effects of the COVID-19...
OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2021–2030
07/2021
The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook provides an assessment of the prospects of national, regional and global agricultural commodity markets over the coming decade. The baseline projections for production, consumption, stocks, trade and prices for cereals, oilseeds and oilseed products, roots & tubers, pulses, sugar, meat, dairy products, fish, cotton, biofuels and tropical fruits cover the years 2021 to 2030.
Indigenous Peoples’ food systems
06/2021
This publication provides an overview of the common and unique sustainability elements of Indigenous Peoples' food systems, in terms of natural resource management, access to the market, diet diversity, indigenous peoples’ governance systems, and links to traditional knowledge and indigenous languages. While enhancing the learning on Indigenous Peoples food systems, it will raise awareness on the need to enhance the protection of Indigenous Peoples' food systems as a source of livelihood for the 476...
The White/Wiphala Paper on Indigenous Peoples’ food systems
06/2021
This White/Wiphala Paper offers a constructive, evidence-based contribution to the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit. The contributors and co-authors of the paper look to the leadership of the UN Food Systems Summit to incorporate the principles and values of Indigenous Peoples’ food systems in the Summit’s agenda, and in the policy discussions and programmes beyond the Summit.
Global assessment of soil pollution
06/2021
Soil pollution is invisible to the human eye, but it compromises the quality of the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe and puts human and environmental health at risk. Most contaminants originate from human activities such as industrial processes and mining, poor waste management, unsustainable farming practices, accidents ranging from small chemical spills to accidents at nuclear power plants, and the many effects of armed conflicts.
Global Report on Food Crises - 2021
05/2021
The 2021 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC 2021) highlights the remarkably high severity and numbers of people in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent in 55 countries/territories, driven by persistent conflict, pre-existing and COVID-19-related economic shocks, and weather extremes. The number identified in the 2021 edition is the highest in the report’s five-year existence. The report is produced by the Global Network against Food Crises (which includes WFP), an...
Forest governance by indigenous and tribal peoples. An opportunity for climate action in Latin America and the Caribbean
03/2021
The document summarizes the report that, based on a review of more than 250 studies, demonstrates the importance and urgency of climate action to protect the forests of the indigenous and tribal territories of Latin America as well as the indigenous and tribal peoples who protect them. These territories contain about a third of the continent's forests. That's 14% of the carbon stored in tropical forests around the world; These territories are also home...
Hunger Hotspots FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity
03/2021
The FAO-WFP Hunger Hotspots report is a forward-looking, early-warning analysis of countries and situations, called hotspots, where acute food insecurity is likely to deteriorate over the coming months. These hotspots are identified through a consensus-based analysis of key drivers of food insecurity, and their likely combination and evolution across countries and regions. Looking at the outlook period of March–July 2021, there are 20 countries and situations where there is a likelihood of further deterioration...
The impact of disasters and crises on agriculture and food security: 2021
03/2021
On top of a decade of exacerbated disaster loss, exceptional global heat, retreating ice and rising sea levels, humanity and our food security face a range of new and unprecedented hazards, such as megafires, extreme weather events, desert locust swarms of magnitudes previously unseen, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Agriculture underpins the livelihoods of over 2.5 billion people – most of them in low-income developing countries – and remains a key driver of development. At...
Illuminating Hidden Harvests Brief
03/2021
This brief provides an update on the status of the study and shares emerging insights on the need for better data collection and analysis, and additional monitoring capacity to improve our collective understanding of small-scale fisheries. This is critical to increasing government attention and improving policy responses and outcomes for the sector.
FAO and TNC present Nature-based Solutions in Agriculture
02/2021
In three new reports, FAO and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) share the potential of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in agriculture to deliver nutrition for people worldwide while restoring nature and the climate - contributing to multiple imperatives of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Here are three things to know about the science, policy and finance that can help producers around the globe lead the transition to a regenerative, or nature-positive, food system.
Local government planning for community food systems - Opportunity, innovation, and equity in low- and middle-income countrie
02/2021
Over the last couple of decades, local governments have started taking action to address food system challenges. This publication introduces a new knowledge base for understanding food planning and governance processes and models in local governments of low- and middle-income countries, a valuable counterbalance to the prevailing literature and experience from high-income countries.
State of Knowledge of Soil Biodiversity
12/2020
This report is the result of an inclusive process involving more than 300 scientists from around the world under the auspices of the FAO’s Global Soil Partnership and its Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative, and the European Commission. It presents concisely the state of knowledge on soil biodiversity, the threats to it, and the solutions that soil biodiversity can provide to problems in different...
The State of Food and Agriculture 2020
11/2020
The State of Food and Agriculture 2020 presents new estimates on the pervasiveness of water scarcity in irrigated agriculture and of water shortages in rainfed agriculture, as well as on the number of people affected. It finds major differences across countries, and also substantial spatial variation within countries. This evidence informs a discussion of how countries may determine appropriate policies and interventions, depending on the nature and magnitude of the problem, but also on...
Forest Products Annual Market Review 2019-2020
11/2020
The Forest Products Annual Market Review, 2019-2020 provides general and statistical information on forest products markets in 2019 and early 2020 in the UN Economic Commission for Europe region (North America; Europe; and the Eastern Europe, Caucuses and Central Asian subregion), as well as market influences from outside the UNECE region. In addition, this year's publication includes production forests for 2020 and 2021.