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The policy brief reviews the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrants working in agri-food systems and their families in rural areas of origin. It points out some of the policy implications and presents key policy recommendations. Measures affecting the movement of people (internally and internationally) and resulting labour shortages, will have an impact on agricultural value chains, affecting food availability and market prices globally. At the same time, large shares of migrants work under informal or casual arrangements, which leave them unprotected, vulnerable to exploitation, poverty and food insecurity, and often without access to healthcare, social protection and the measures [...]

The document presents FAO's component of the COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Appeal, focusing on maintaining operations in food crisis contexts, anticipating the secondary impacts of the pandemic and related containment efforts on the world's most vulnerable people and sustaining critical food supply chains to avert future food crises.

It is projected that climate change will affect rainfall patterns in South Asia and will contribute to a decline in water availability for rice cultivation in the region. In Sri Lanka, where rice is both the staple food and the primary crop grown by farmers, reductions in water availability for rice cultivation has serious impacts on farmers’ welfare and national food security. The Overarching Agricultural Policy in Sri Lanka recognizes the importance of adapting and building resilience to climate change in order to achieve national development and food security objectives. A key policy thrust of the agricultural policy framework is to [...]

While the COVID-19 pandemic is devastating lives, public health systems, livelihoods and economies all over the world, populations living in food crisis contexts are particularly exposed to its effects. Countries with existing humanitarian crises are particularly exposed to the effects of the pandemic, which is already directly affecting food systems through impacts on food supply and demand, and indirectly through decreases in purchasing power, the capacity to produce and distribute food, and the intensification of care tasks, all of which will have differentiated impacts and will more strongly affect the most vulnerable populations. The effects could be even stronger in countries [...]

Measures implemented around the world to contain the COVID-19 pandemic have entailed a severe reduction not only in the transportation of goods and services that rely on transport, but also in the migration of labour domestically and internationally. Workers are less available reflecting both disruptions in transportation systems and restrictions to stop the transmission of the disease, within and across borders. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) urges countries to maintain functioning food value chains to avoid food shortages, following practices that are being proven to work. This note summarizes some practices that could be useful for [...]

This paper aims to identify the channels of transmissions of the COVID-19 pandemic into the food and agriculture sectors and, based on this, to delineate the degrees of exposure to the COVID-19 shock by geographic region. Primary production, trade and final consumption are analysed in detail and, where possible, quantified. Based on results of the analysis, a country taxonomy of the exposure is developed and presented.  

Chemical production, use and disposal will continue to increase worldwide; assessments and forecasts predict that global chemical sales will grow by about 3 percent per year until 2050, the major part of which will take place in Asia. South-East Asian countries in particular have shown strong industrial growth in agriculture during the last two decades. Many countries in Southeast Asia lack the capacity to handle chemicals management issues and are in great need to develop institutions, legislation, knowledge and general awareness. The countries face many challenges in the area of chemicals management, in particular pesticide governance. The intensive and often [...]

The vast majority of the world’s food crops are annuals that are grown from seed sown at the start of each production season. The quality of that seed is a key determinant of production. Farmers cannot easily observe the quality or identity of seed at the point of sale, which creates a risk on the part of the farmer. With the development of the commercial seed trade and the increasing number of varieties during the 20th century it became important to reduce this risk. This led to the formulation of laws and regulations intended to protect farmers and increase agricultural [...]

El Marco de la FAO para la Alimentación y Nutrición Escolar tiene como objetivo apoyar a los gobiernos y las instituciones para que desarrollen, transformen o fortalezcan sus políticas, programas y otras iniciativas a fin de lograr un mejor impacto en la alimentación, la nutrición escolar y adolescente, el desarrollo socioeconómico comunitario y los sistemas alimentarios locales. El Marco representa una respuesta directa al llamado internacional para mejorar la nutrición a lo largo del ciclo de vida y para transformar los sistemas alimentarios, en el contexto de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS), la Segunda Conferencia Internacional sobre Nutrición (CIN2) y el [...]

This document summarizes the online discussion Mainstreaming gender for sustainable soil management, held on the FAO Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum) from 23 September to 25 October 2019. The discussion was facilitated by Ilaria Sisto and Ronald Vargas from FAO and aimed to collect views from a wide range of stakeholders about the relations between gender equality and sustainable soil management (SSM). Participants’ contributions fed into the draft of the ‘Guide on gender and sustainable soil management’ prepared by the Regional Soil Partnerships, the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils, and the Social Policies and Rural Institutions Division of [...]