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The twelfth joint edition of the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook provides market projections to 2025 for major agricultural commodities, biofuels and fish. The 2016 report contains a special feature on the prospects for, and challenges facing, Sub-Saharan Africa. Over the ten year Outlook period slowing demand growth will be matched by efficiency gains in production, implying relatively flat real agricultural prices. However, market and policy uncertainties imply a risk of resurgent volatility. The outlook for agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa is for rising food availability, which will support a declining incidence of undernourishment. The sector’s prospects could be much improved by more stable [...]

There is increasing recognition at the global level of the role that agriculture and social protection can jointly play in combating hunger and poverty. Efforts are also being made at the country level, in Africa and elsewhere, to bring together these two domains. However, more needs to be done. The full range of benefits to be derived from greater coherence between agriculture and social protection is not yet widely understood, nor are the means through which coherence can be promoted. This document presents a Framework for Analysis and Action with the purpose of filling this knowledge gap. By drawing from [...]

The 21st century faces multiple and complex challenges. The new 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda galvanizes and commits the International community to act together to surmount them and trasform our world for today's and future generations. 

Four years since the Voluntary Guidelines were endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security as the global consensus on improving tenure, their principles and processes are inspiring people around the world to take action. With wide ownership by governments, civil society and the private sector, they represent an unbiased framework in which new conversations on tenure are taking place, new skills are being developed, and new policies are being influenced in participatory ways. This brief shares some stories on improving tenure from Africa, Asia, Europe and Central Asia and Latin America. These cases have been supported by FAO, working [...]

Protect children from pesticides!, FAO and ILO's new visual guide, provides an easy accessible training tool. It helps agricultural extension workers, rural educators, labour inspectors, and producer organizations in teaching farmers and their families how to identify and minimize risks at home and on the farm. They also learn how to recognize and respond to signs of toxic exposure. The  guide has three main modules: how children are exposed to pesticides, what the health risks are and why children are particularly vulnerable, and what can be done to reduce those risks. Growing interest: "The tool was initially developed in Mali, where it [...]

Uganda is putting significant efforts toward addressing the constraints responsible for its low agricultural productivity, which affects farmers’ incomes and therefore, their food security. The biggest developments are being seen in improving the added value of its production, as well as in supporting strategic commodities such as livestock and rice. 

European Commission on Agriculture. Thirty-ninth Session. Budapest, Hungary, 22 and 23 September 2015, Agenda item 6 This paper provides an updated overview of the social and economic burden of malnutrition across EuCA sub-regions and countries, and recommendations to strengthen ongoing and future work. The paper also seeks to provide ways in which governments can effectively address malnutrition and meet the ICN2 commitments, as well as broader countries’ nutrition agendas.

The notes collected in this publication were initially disseminated at the “Private Sector Forum on Food Security in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Region” jointly organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) in May 2015. The notes aim to inform EBRD agribusiness investments in the SEMED and disseminate knowledge on current trends in agribusiness and food security. The EBRD called upon FAO’s technical assistance to carry out an analysis of key trends in the agribusiness sector of four specific countries: Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan. This process resulted in four country [...]

Following the Intergovernmental Group Meeting on Tea in New Delhi in 2010, FAO was requested by the Government of Kenya to assist with a climate change impact assessment of tea in Kenya and to help develop a new strategy to confront its effects. This report is the outcome of a two-year project in Kenya and offers the findings from an integrated climate impact assessment. The analysis covered (i) historical and future links between climate parameters and tea yields, (ii) a carbon life cycle analysis, (iii) tea management scenarios under climate change using aquacrop model, and (iv) a socio-economic analysis of [...]

The aim of this paper is to provide policy-makers with a helpful overview of the technical and economic aspects of water use in agriculture, with particular emphasis on crop and livestock production. Through 2050, in many countries, agriculture will remain an important determinant of economic growth, poverty reduction, and food security, even as, over time, the proportion of agricultural revenue in national gross income declines. Water use in agriculture will remain substantial, irrigated areas will expand and competition for water will increase in all sectors. Most likely, overall supplies of land and water will be sufficient to achieve global food [...]