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The status of women in agrifood systems report uses extensive new data and analyses to provide a comprehensive picture of women’s participation, benefits, and challenges they face working in agrifood systems globally. The report shows how increasing women’s empowerment and gender equality in agrifood systems enhances women’s well-being and the well-being of their households, creating opportunities for economic growth, greater incomes, productivity and resilience. The report comes more than a decade after the publication of the State of food and agriculture (SOFA) 2010–11: Women in agriculture – Closing the gender gap for development. SOFA 2010–11 documented the tremendous costs of gender [...]

In an effort to assist the Iraqi Government in addressing the challenges currently faced by the displaced farming population in their return to farming, the International Organization on Migration (IOM) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have agreed to collaborate on a joint study to identify the needs of the displaced population and strategies for restarting agricultural production in conflict-affected rural areas. The study aims to 1) identify the role that agriculture plays as a source of livelihood for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and returnees; 2) understand the drivers, constraints and challenges confronted by displaced and [...]

The analysis presented in this report examines the impacts of repurposing food and agricultural fiscal support and border support on the cost and affordability of healthy diets and several other key socioeconomic, nutritional and climate indicators. The impacts are estimated at the global level, as well as for various income groups and geographic regions. Scenarios include repurposing fiscal support to producer support targeted to high-priority foods (those where current levels of consumption are below that of recommended levels) and to consumer subsidies targeting high-priority foods.

Extending the coverage of social insurance schemes to rural areas of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is challenging because of high administrative costs and a lack of necessary capacity. As a result agriculture workers tend to be left out of these schemes. This research report aims to understand the main administrative barriers and capacity constraints that may hinder the coverage of agriculture workers in social insurance schemes, and suggest possible strategies that could be considered to address them. Also available in Arabic

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a comprehensive system that requires thorough consideration of local climate, natural environment, market demand, economic and cultural environment. FAO introduced CSA at the Hague Conference on Agricultural, Food Security and Climate Change in 2010 and has been strongly supporting it since then. The development of CSA in China contributes to reaching its carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality in China by 2060.This publication introduces China's CSA development and provides policy proposals. It contains four sections: the background and development status of China's CSA; practices and achievements of China's CSA, including analysing case studies such as [...]

In this paper, we propose a simple methodology to select a limited number of geographical areas to prioritize for commodity-specific investments in Uganda. Similar to other approaches for prioritizing investments geographically, the basic idea behind the proposed method is that districts with high agro-ecological potential, that are also far from their potential and have high levels of poverty, should be prioritized for commodity-specific investments as they are where investments are likely to have the highest impact. The methodology then proposes an iterative elimination algorithm to provide a list of suggested districts that rank high in all dimensions.The results highlight that [...]

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.The three interrelated pathways are halting deforestation and maintaining forests; restoring degraded lands and expanding agroforestry; and sustainably using forests and building green value chains. The balanced, simultaneous pursuit of these pathways can generate sustainable economic [...]

Digital and automation solutions for precision agriculture can improve efficiency, productivity, product quality and sustainability. Nevertheless, barriers to adoption of such solutions – including their cost, lack of knowledge and skills, and the absence of an enabling environment and infrastructure – can prevent producers from realizing these benefits.Building on findings from 22 case studies worldwide, this study finds that national data policies and infrastructure are key enablers of adoption, as is investment in connectivity (e.g. internet) and electricity in rural areas. Further research and information on the economic, environmental and social impacts of the solutions are also needed to provide [...]

The Jordan country programme evaluation covered the period 2017–2021. The evaluation assessed FAO's strategic positioning, operational and organizational capacity, contributions, partnerships and normative values. It also identified key lessons learned and recommendations to inform the next Country Programming Framework.The evaluation found evidence of sustainable results in FAO Jordan: FAO’s programme in Jordan responded to beneficiaries’ needs considering global and country development and humanitarian priorities. FAO is working in accordance with its comparative advantage and is recognized as a trusted source of technical knowledge and advice. It has carried out actions in Jordan to i) influence decision-making, national stakeholders and partners; [...]

This paper examines the distributional impacts of agricultural policies versus those of cash transfers using a tax–benefit microsimulation model for Zambia for the policy year 2020. The analysis also considers the behavioural impacts of input subsidies and social cash transfers. The results indicate that Zambian agricultural policies reduce headcount poverty by 3–5 percentage points, depending on whether only their direct impacts or also behavioural impacts that lead to changes in agricultural production are taken into account. The paper also considers policy reforms where the goal is to achieve similar, or even greater, poverty reduction with smaller government net expenditure. The results [...]