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This edition of The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets focuses on the complex and underexplored intersection between agricultural trade, climate change and food security. The report makes an important contribution to the policy debates on climate change adaptation and mitigation under the Paris Agreement and the multilateral agricultural trade rules. The report discusses policies – both domestic support and trade measures – that can promote food security, adaptation and mitigation, and improve the livelihoods of family farmers around the world. Given both the slow- and rapid-onset impacts of climate change, policies that can significantly promote climate change adaptation and mitigation [...]

FAO promotes the use and scale up of Cash+ as a tool for emergency response, strengthening resilience and reducing rural poverty. The Cash+ model supports the enhancement of vibrant and diversified livelihoods, providing an important safety net against shocks and stresses for poor and vulnerable rural households. As such, the model has great transformative potential. Cash+ is a tool for quick-impact humanitarian response and recovery as well as serving as a component of long-term social protection and resilience programmes. FAO’s work on Cash+ is based on field experience and research, which show the potential of this tool to sustainably enhance the [...]

Strong market interventions and regulations of agricultural products have been part of the import substitution strategy implemented by the previous government until 2015, when the new administration reversed it by opening the market. Throughout the review period (2007-2017), the country prioritized social spending through various programmes, all of which were sustained by the new administration.

During the period 2007-2017, Nigeria’s agriculture sector has undergone major reforms. The introduction of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) reformed the input delivery system, strengthened famers’ resilience to shocks and enhanced agricultural credit. In 2016, the government launched the Social Investment programme which aims at strengthening school feeding, conditional cash transfers and food bio-fortification programmes. 

In recent years, government's investments in agriculture have focused on increasing land under irrigation, subsidizing inputs, strengthening the agricultural extension service and reforming agricultural sector institutions through the privatization of a number of parastatals. Although agriculture represents the largest contributor to Kenya's GDP, the allocation of public expenditure to the sector has remained below the five percent over the past decade.

Indonesia has charted impressive economic growth since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. The national top priority is becoming self-sufficient in rice, maize, soybeans, sugar and beef. To achieve this, the Government is providing farmers with significant market price support, fertilizer subsidies and setting import restrictions. Social protection is being strenghtened through the consolidation of the RASKIN programme, the introduction of nutrition and cash transfer programmes and the substitution of fuel subsidies For more country policy briefs by FAPDA please see here.

FAO helps countries achieve SDG1 (No poverty) and SDG2 (Zero hunger) by improving the livelihoods of poor and extreme poor rural people, including smallholders and family farmers.

The present study reviews recent trends in rural finance and investment in general, and in the agricultural sector in particular, within the Asian region. The analysis of these trends aims to offer a critical perspective on some of the main constraints to achieving more inclusive rural financial systems in developing countries in the region, and to propose areas of public and private intervention that could advance this objective, based on evidence compiled from important innovations led by local rural actors in various countries within the region. The study makes a joint analysis of recent trends in both agricultural markets and [...]

Cette note technique a pour objectif d’analyser l’évolution des dépenses publiques en soutien à la sécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle (SAN) au Sénégal. Son ambition est de livrer une analyse détaillée du niveau, de la composition et de la cohérence des dépenses en soutien à la SAN dans le pays, en identifiant des possibilités d’amélioration dans la formulation et l’exécution de ces dépenses. Elle s’emploie tout particulièrement à déterminer si les dépenses en soutien à la SAN ont été allouées de manière cohérente par rapport aux objectifs du Gouvernement (efficience verticale) d’une part, et par rapport au diagnostic d’insécurité alimentaire et [...]

In response to the declining production trend for maize and wheat over the period 2007-2016, the government took measures that included direct inputs assistance to farmers, provision of extension services, and liberalization and deregulation measures. However, financial constraints, together with a number of weather-related shocks, have considerably limited the impact of these measures on agricultural production and development