FAO.org

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) works towards ending hunger and poverty while using precious natural resources sustainably. The fisheries and aquaculture sector makes substantial contributions to food security, livelihoods and global trade. Global production of fish and other aquatic animals continued to grow and reached 179 million tonnes in 2018, and about 59.5 million people were engaged in the primary sector of capture fisheries and aquaculture. Fishery net exports generate significantly more revenue for developing countries than other agricultural commodities such as rice, coffee and tea. Millions of people are struggling to maintain reasonable livelihoods through [...]

This policy brief presents a snapshot review of how key policies have affected rice in Rwanda in the run up to the Government of Rwanda’s target to become self-sufficient in rice by 2018, while at the same time boosting the commodity’s competitiveness in local and regional markets.The brief looks at how trade and domestic policies in place have supported and incentivized rice production, why achievement of the self-sufficiency goal by 2018 has however been extremely challenging and how trade barriers (i.e. import tariffs, established to protect the domestic market are likely to impact both the production and consumption of rice [...]

This is the fifth document in a series of case studies by member countries of the Thematic Working Group on Agriculture, Food Security and Land Use (TWG), under the NDC-Partnership. The aim is to present what countries are doing to tackle climate change and implement their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

Identifying sustainable sources of renewable energy is key to ensuring that countries can grow on a sustainable path that also meets climate change targets as outlined in countries’ NDCs.Among renewables, bioenergy can attract investments in the rural sector and help farmers to improve their income by increasing agricultural production and diversifying markets for by-products, such as digestate. FAO’s Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) Approach assists countries in defining which bioenergy options can be both sustainable and viable while ensuring food security and protecting the environment.In Rwanda the agriculture sector plays a key role in its economy, contributing around one-third of [...]

The objective of this study is to provide insights into potentialities, steps, and best practices in applying blockchain technology (BCT) to use cases in agriculture in the context of climate change, to explore the opportunities and challenges in applying the BCT in agricultural sectors with the aims of reducing greenhouse gas emission, increasing carbon sequestration, as well as supporting farmers’ adaptation to climate change. Furthermore, this study also aims to shed light on policy options and propose policy guidance adapted to developing countries on blockchain applications.

This policy brief is intended to inform decision-makers of nine transformational actions to sustain dryland production systems under the impact of climate change. It highlights the relevance of the local context for interventions and the importance of traditional and tested adaptive agrosilvopastoral strategies for building resilience. In addition, it emphasizes the potential for scaling up and using complementary technologies over wider areas. In particular, the roles of both women and men should not be neglected in terms of maintaining, creating and restoring dryland sustainable landscape.

With climate change impacts already felt in the world’s drylands, there is an urgent need for action, at various scales and initiated by different stakeholders, to ensure the sustainability of food production and livelihoods in these regions in the coming decades. There is also the need to rapidly establish baselines, assess and start monitoring progress on sustainability, emerging as result of the action taken.To aid in this effort, this paper provides a short list of expected transformations (under each of the three sustainability pillars) for guiding the planning and implementation of policy, governance and practice-level actions. Gender and indigenous people’s [...]

The FAOSTAT emissions database is composed of several data domains covering the categories of the IPCC Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector of the national GHG inventory. Energy use in agriculture is additionally included as relevant to emissions from agriculture as an economic production sector under the ISIC A statistical classification, though recognizing that, in terms of IPCC, they are instead part of the Energy sector of the national GHG inventory.FAO emissions estimates are available over the period 1961–2018 for agriculture production processes from crop and livestock activities. Land use emissions and removals are generally available only for [...]

Climate change poses a major threat to reducing poverty, eradicating hunger, and achieving sustainable development. It accelerates the frequency and intensity of extreme natural hazards, thus affecting the lives and livelihoods of those living in rural areas. Protecting poor and vulnerable small-scale food producers from climate change-related risks is necessary for achieving FAO’s strategic objectives and Sustainable Development Goals 1 (ending poverty) and 2 (zero hunger). This brief stresses the important role social protection plays in supporting inclusive climate risk-management strategies that contribute to safeguarding livelihoods and increasing the resilience of households.

On top of a decade of exacerbated disaster loss, exceptional global heat, retreating ice and rising sea levels, humanity and our food security face a range of new and unprecedented hazards, such as megafires, extreme weather events, desert locust swarms of magnitudes previously unseen, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Agriculture underpins the livelihoods of over 2.5 billion people – most of them in low-income developing countries – and remains a key driver of development. At no other point in history has agriculture been faced with such an array of familiar and unfamiliar risks, interacting in a hyperconnected world and a precipitously [...]