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The Mozambique land law provides statutory recognition of customary land rights and is considered one of the most progressive legislations in Africa. However, the law continues to face implementation challenges, including the realization of equal rights for women and institutional reform. Simply having a progressive law ‘is not enough’ to bring about transformative change in a country. Recognizing these challenges, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) developed a programme to support the legislation through the capacity development of both direct beneficiaries and those responsible for implementing it. This publication, presents an overview of how this programme [...]

If a decision is made at the national level to increase the share of bioenergy, what implications does this have for water, land and energy? How do electricity subsidies contribute to groundwater depletion and what can be done about it? How can we ensure that sectoral policies and strategies consider the potential trade-offs for other sectors? Finding answers to these questions is the main challenge of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus. By describing the complex and interrelated nature of our global resource systems, the Nexus approach helps us to better understand and systematically analyze how we can use and manage our resources in light of different, often competing [...]

Gender equality is one of the ten core principles of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. This guide aims to assist in its implementation through the achievement of responsible gender-equitable governance of land tenure. The guide focuses on equity and on how land tenure can be governed in ways that address the different needs and priorities of women and men. Gender-equitable governance of land tenure ensures that women and men can participate equally in their relationships to land, through both formal institutions and informal arrangements for land administration and management. The [...]

The AFOLU sector (Agriculture, Forestry, Land Use) is directly linked with climate change issues, on an environmental aspect as well as on an economical and social aspect (food security).  On the one hand, the sector directly contributes to climate change. Indeed, agriculture represents 14% of the total worldwide GHG emissions, and deforestation accounts for 17% (UNFCCC, 2008). The AFOLU sector is thus responsible for one third of the GHG emissions in the world. Moreover, this sector is increasingly vulnerable to climate changes and hence requires adaptation measures. On the other hand, it is estimated that the mitigation potential of the AFOLU [...]

Les Directives volontaires pour une gouvernance responsable des régimes fonciers applicables aux terres, aux pêches et aux forêts dans le contexte de la sécurité alimentaire nationale). Les Directives visent à apporter une sécurité foncière et un accès équitable à la terre, aux pêches et aux forêts, dans le but d’éliminer la faim et la pauvreté, de soutenir le développement durable et d’améliorer la gestion de l’environnement. Elles ont été officiellement approuvées par le Comité de la sécurité alimentaire mondiale (CSA) le 11 mai 2012. Depuis, la mise en œuvre des Directives a été encouragée par le G20, Rio + 20, [...]

This document presents a set of guiding principles that are conducive to responsible contract farming operations. It is intended to serve as guidance for farmers and buyers engaged in contractual relationships, in order to promote good business practices and maintain an atmosphere of trust and respect that is essential if contract farming is to prove effective. This brief is a complement to other publications available on FAO’s Contract Farming Resource Centre (www.fao.org/ag/ags/contract-farming).

The State of Land and Water Resources (SOLAW) is FAO's first flagship publication on the global status of land and water resources. It is an 'advocacy' report, to be published every 3 to 5 years, and targeted at senior level decision makers in agriculture as well as in other sectors. SOLAW is aimed at sensitizing its target audience on the status of land resources at global and regional levels and FAO's viewpoint on appropriate recommendations for policy formulation. SOLAW focuses on these key dimensions of analysis: (i) quantity, quality of land and water resources (ii) the rate of use and [...]

The report examines: the role of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) in agriculture; the relevance of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) agri-environmental measures for PES; opportunities and gaps in PES implementation and key areas for further investigation; cost-effective targeting of PES; social and cultural drivers behind the success of PES; landscape labelling approaches to PES through bundling services, products and stewards; enabling conditions and complementary legislative tools; and PES within the context of a green economy. The report includes case studies on: PES and eco-certification in Kenya; geographic indication certification in Ukraine; PES in Tanzania; PES and rubber [...]

This report is based on “Applying Historical Precedent to New Conventional Wisdom on Public Sector Roles in Agriculture and Rural Development”, synthesizes the reviews of the history of agricultural policy in ten of today’s developed countries (Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United States of America) and in ten developing and transition economies (Chile, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Hungary, India, Mexico, Ukraine, Viet Nam and Zambia). It draws lessons for today’s developing and transition countries that go beyond the so-called Washington Consensus. This report is supported by 10 country case studies and FAO tries [...]

The State of Food and Agriculture 2008 explores the implications of the rapid recent growth in production of biofuels based on agricultural commodities. The boom in liquid biofuels has been largely induced by policies in developed countries, based on their expected positive contributions to climate-change mitigation, energy security and agricultural development. The growing demand for agricultural commodities for the production of biofuels is having significant repercussions on agricultural markets, and concerns are mounting over their negative impact on the food security of millions of people across the world. At the same time, the environmental impacts of biofuels are also coming under closer scrutiny. But biofuels also offer [...]