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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) have cooperated over several decades to develop and implement the Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZ) modelling framework and databases. AEZ relies on well-established land evaluation principles to assess natural resources for finding suitable agricultural land utilization options. It identifies resource limitations and opportunities based on plant eco-physiological characteristics, climatic and edaphic requirements of crops and it uses these to evaluate suitability and production potentials for individual crop types under specific input and management conditions. Managing the constraints imposed by agro-ecological conditions and knowing what [...]

The IPPC Strategic Framework for 2020-2030 defines priorities and actions of the global plant health community for the next decade. The strategic framework has been adopted by the fifteenth Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM-15) to support national plant protection organizations and overcome the emerging challenges linked to e-commerce, pest outbreak alert and response systems, climate change impacts on plant health, global reasearch coordination, and many others.

Human nutrition is vital for agriculture. Many smallholder farmers are food-insecure and suffer chronic or acute forms of malnutrition. This can permanently harm the physical and cognitive growth of children, while reducing productivity as household members are less able to carry out agricultural work.Agriculture is vital for human nutrition. Nutrition has long been considered mostly a health issue. However, agriculture plays an essential role in ensuring nutritional wellbeing not only for rural populations, but also for society as a whole.Beyond producing food in sufficient quantity, agri-food systems should also:    provide diversified, safe and nutritious foods;    improve rural incomes and resilience, [...]

This policy brief presents a snapshot review of how key policies have affected rice in Rwanda in the run up to the Government of Rwanda’s target to become self-sufficient in rice by 2018, while at the same time boosting the commodity’s competitiveness in local and regional markets.The brief looks at how trade and domestic policies in place have supported and incentivized rice production, why achievement of the self-sufficiency goal by 2018 has however been extremely challenging and how trade barriers (i.e. import tariffs, established to protect the domestic market are likely to impact both the production and consumption of rice [...]

This is the fifth document in a series of case studies by member countries of the Thematic Working Group on Agriculture, Food Security and Land Use (TWG), under the NDC-Partnership. The aim is to present what countries are doing to tackle climate change and implement their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

This policy brief is intended to inform decision-makers of nine transformational actions to sustain dryland production systems under the impact of climate change. It highlights the relevance of the local context for interventions and the importance of traditional and tested adaptive agrosilvopastoral strategies for building resilience. In addition, it emphasizes the potential for scaling up and using complementary technologies over wider areas. In particular, the roles of both women and men should not be neglected in terms of maintaining, creating and restoring dryland sustainable landscape.

With climate change impacts already felt in the world’s drylands, there is an urgent need for action, at various scales and initiated by different stakeholders, to ensure the sustainability of food production and livelihoods in these regions in the coming decades. There is also the need to rapidly establish baselines, assess and start monitoring progress on sustainability, emerging as result of the action taken.To aid in this effort, this paper provides a short list of expected transformations (under each of the three sustainability pillars) for guiding the planning and implementation of policy, governance and practice-level actions. Gender and indigenous people’s [...]

Climate change poses a major threat to reducing poverty, eradicating hunger, and achieving sustainable development. It accelerates the frequency and intensity of extreme natural hazards, thus affecting the lives and livelihoods of those living in rural areas. Protecting poor and vulnerable small-scale food producers from climate change-related risks is necessary for achieving FAO’s strategic objectives and Sustainable Development Goals 1 (ending poverty) and 2 (zero hunger). This brief stresses the important role social protection plays in supporting inclusive climate risk-management strategies that contribute to safeguarding livelihoods and increasing the resilience of households.

In many developing countries the adoption of climate sustainable practices is hindered by resource and risk barriers. This paper assesses the interactions between participation in Malawi’s largest public works programme, the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF), and three widely promoted climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices. The underlying hypotheses to be tested are: (a) that participation in the MASAF programme reduce both the budget and the risk constraints to the adoption of sustainable management practices; and (b) the joint treatment effect of MASAF and CSA increases household farms’ productivity and welfare. Drawing on three waves of national panel household survey data, we [...]

Most flowering plants, including wild species and many food crops, are pollinated by animals and are vital, therefore, for biological production and the maintenance of biodiversity. Pollinators benefit from diverse natural habitats for forage and nesting, especially when these are limited in plant production systems. Landscape and forest management practices can help ensure the continued availability of pollinators and thereby increase resilience and the productivity of forestry and agriculture. The extent of forests and other natural habitats in a landscape plays a role in determining the species composition of pollinators. Agricultural landscapes adjoining fragmented forests and natural areas benefit from [...]