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Climate change-related events undermine children’s educational attainment, exposing them to child labour, hazardous work and forced migration. This nexus is particularly relevant for agriculture and its subsectors: indeed, they absorb about 26 percent of the economic impacts of climate change-related disasters and host 70 percent of all child labour. This study aims to identify the extent to which climate change-related events and impacts affect child labour in agriculture by exploring the underlying connection between the two challenges as the initial step towards integrating a child labour lens within the international community’s work on climate change. It showcases the multi-dimensional relationship through [...]

Ce rapport met en évidence l'impact économique, financier et social de la crise de covid-19 sur le secteur agricole et agroalimentaire en Tunisie. En addition de ces impacts globaux, le rapport s'intéresse à l'expérience de certains pays d'Amérique latine où la sécurité alimentaire est une question clé dans la conduite des politiques publiques. Le rapport s'intéresse également à l'impact de la covid-19 sur la performance des chaînes de valeur agricoles et agroalimentaires en termes de commerce extérieur et présente les principaux facteurs de vulnérabilité et de contraintes de cette chaîne de valeur centrale dans la conduite des politiques publiques de [...]

In the Asia–Pacific region, water resources form the basis of agrarian prosperity and economic development. However, increasing water demand due to population growth, rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, and a changing climate undermine those water resources. Like many parts of the world, Asia–Pacific faces increasing water scarcity, with varying characteristics, causes and trends across a diverse range of countries at different stages of development. Understanding of the spatial and temporal differences in water scarcity across the region is, however, limited, and while policies and management strategies are under development in all countries, their effectiveness varies significantly. Responses to water scarcity are often [...]

En 2022, dans le cadre du projet «Efficacité, productivité et durabilité de l’eau dans la région du Proche-Orient et de l’Afrique du Nord», l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture (FAO) a appuyé le Gouvernement tunisien dans l’analyse de la comptabilité de l’eau en combinaison avec l’analyse de la gouvernance de l’eau dans la basse vallée de la Medjerda (BVM). La BVM a été retenue pour son importance capitale dans le système hydraulique du nord du pays. En effet, la Medjerda, principal fleuve du pays, représente l’essentiel des réserves nationales en eau de surface, irrigue 80 000 hectares de terres [...]

Legislating for an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) is complex, due to the holistic nature of EAF involving multiple factors that underpin the social, economic, environmental, and institutional aspects of fisheries sustainability. These factors include ecosystems integration, risks, intersectoral collaboration, research, participatory processes, monitoring, control, surveillance, and enforcement, among others. To assess how an EAF is being implemented through national policy and legal frameworks, FAO developed a diagnostic tool for implementing an ecosystem approach to fisheries through national policy and legal frameworks. The present legal report on the EAF used the diagnostic tool to assess the alignment of selected policy and [...]

These guidelines are intended to assist competent authorities in their consideration of voluntary third-party assurance (vTPA) programmes. They provide a framework and criteria for assessing the integrity and credibility of the governance structures of vTPA programmes and the reliability of information/data generated by such programmes to support national food control system objectives. The term "Codex Alimentarius" is Latin and means "food code”. Codex standards are international food texts, i.e. standards, codes of practice, codes of hygienic practice, guidelines and other recommendations, established to protect the health of the consumers and to ensure fair practices in the food trade. The collection of [...]

While the aquaculture sector has seen extraordinary global growth over recent years, it also faces a number of important challenges. Although aquaculture may reduce pressure on wild fish stocks, the fact remains that the sector can also have a range of negative environmental impacts. At the same time, a degraded environment, in particular poor water quality, can adversely affect the health of aquatic animals and plants used in aquaculture and therefore the economic sustainability of the sector. Moreover, if appropriate bio-security measures, in the sense of measures to protect aquatic animal health, aquatic plant health and human health, are not [...]

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on food and agriculture have been felt all over the world. As the pandemic unfolded, considerable attention began to be paid to the resilience of agricultural supply chains to COVID-19-related shocks, as well as to natural and human-induced shocks more generally. These "Guidelines to increase the resilience of agricultural supply chains" are intended for policymakers and other stakeholders who need a broad grasp of the concepts, issues and possible approaches involved. Efforts to strengthen resilience to risks need to be based on a thorough analysis of the exposure and vulnerability of supply chains to them, [...]

Building on the previous work by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) supporting the identification of priority agricultural sectors and possible locations with high agricultural transformation potential in Uganda, this technical study provides more granular information from Ugandan farmers and district agriculture officers on which investments are needed the most to increase productivity. It identifies and ranks the areas for investments in terms of seeds/breeds, fertilizers/veterinary drugs, mechanization, irrigation, extension, research and development (R&D), roads and electrification for five commodity-district pairs (millet in Soroti, maize in Serere, cassava in Lira, goats in Kibaale and coffee in [...]

This policy brief highlights the main findings from the FAO Agricultural Development Economics Technical Study ‘Identifying commodity-specific priority investments in selected districts of Uganda’. The findings include a ranking from one to eight of priority investment areas – seeds/breeds, fertilizers/veterinary drugs, mechanization, irrigation, extension, research and development for five selected commodities (cassava, coffee, goats, maize and millet) in five districts in Uganda – from the perspective of farmers and local experts, who ultimately produce or support the production of the five commodities. The findings reveal that for commodities cassava, coffee, goats, maize and millet, the Ugandan farmers and district agriculture experts [...]