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This policy brief is part of a series that aims at analysing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food and agriculture sectors. This brief, specifically, analysis possible impacts of the measures adopted by countries to fight the pandemic, on food supply chains. It identifies and illustrates what countries should do in order to keep food supply chains alive.  Also available in Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, French and Russian

The right to feed oneself in dignity and to be free from hunger is guaranteed by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which today has been signed and ratified by 170 State Parties. As such, the right to food is a legal obligation anchored in international law. In order to fulfill this obligation, many countries and international organizations have led concrete actions to infuence policies and laws for the realization of the right to food.FAO, as the United Nations Specialized Agency mandated with the achievement of food security and nutrition, has supported Member Countries committed towards this [...]

This toolkit aims to help countries in selecting and analysing value chains for opportunities to improve climate change resilience and reduce gender inequalities. It intends to provide policy makers, planners, project developers, technical advisors and implementers at local, regional or national level with good practices of climate-resilient and gender-responsive value chain development. It aims to act as a repository of relevant tools and methodologies for identifying relevant stakeholders and engaging with them to collect data and analyse it to design interventions. Climate change threatens agricultural value chains, and having a gender-responsive value chain approach is useful in analysing the climate [...]

This brief provides an overview of the potential of distributed ledger technologies to facilitate transactions in agricultural supply chains through enhanced traceability, efficiency, transparency and accountability.

Why does mountain agriculture deserve special attention in a Zero Hunger context? Firstly, because hunger remains common in many mountainous areas. While on a global scale, food insecurity has tended to go down, mountain dwellers have fared worse than people living in plains. Secondly, because mountains cover a large part of the world, especially in Asia: the continent hosts more than one-third of the world’s mountains. Many Asian countries are dominated by mountains: for instance, nearly the entire land area in Bhutan is mountainous, and Lao PDR has 89 percent of its land area classified as mountainous or upland – [...]

The demand of society on forests has continuously changed. Initially, forests were mainly seen as resources for timber. Overtime, the role of forests has expanded as our society expects various economic, social and environmental products and services from the forests. Forests now are seen as a component of broader landscapes. The interconnectedness of forests to other sectors has become much more understood. Also, there is a better appreciation of the environmental and cultural role of forests. Looking into the future, it is very important for governments, organizations, private sector and other stakeholders to understand the roles of forests and forestry [...]

The objective of the Assessment is to analyse the agriculture and rural sectors from a gender perspective at the macro level (policy), meso level (institutional) and micro level (community and household). The Assessment seeks to identify gender inequalities in access to critical productive resources, assets, services and opportunities. The assessment looks at the priorities, needs and constraints of both women and men in agricultural and rural communities, and the gaps that exist in responding to these issues. It also provides recommendations and guidance to promote gender sensitivity in future programmes and projects, and identifies possible partners for gender-related activities. This Assessment [...]

The way food systems have evolved over past decades means that they now face major risks, which in turn threaten the future of food systems themselves. Food systems have seriously contributed to climate change, environmental destruction, overexploitation of natural resources and pollution of air, water and soils. Despite the global average improvement in calorie production and major development of the food and agricultural product markets, huge inequalities in food access and repartition of the added value have emerged, leading to new serious nutritional and social problems. Based on a review of the most recent scientific knowledge, this report emphasizes Low-Income [...]

This new edition of the report focuses on food losses and waste, providing new estimates of the world’s food post-harvest up to, but excluding, the retail level. Addressing policy makers, the report also offers a comprehensive analysis of the critical loss points in specific supply chains, thus providing examples on appropriate measures for an effective reduction.

According to Forbes, we generate almost 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. The next generation of agriculture heavily depends on data. The ability to capture, sort, analyze and extract actionable intelligence from large data sets to reveal patterns (human, climate, market) and related trends is an important emerging field.  The increase in the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices would only add to this data deluge. The Economist rightly called data as the world’s most valuable resource, while some calling data the new oil. Agriculture would be one of the major users of IoTs. How can individuals, organizations and [...]