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Protect children from pesticides!, FAO and ILO's new visual guide, provides an easy accessible training tool. It helps agricultural extension workers, rural educators, labour inspectors, and producer organizations in teaching farmers and their families how to identify and minimize risks at home and on the farm. They also learn how to recognize and respond to signs of toxic exposure. The  guide has three main modules: how children are exposed to pesticides, what the health risks are and why children are particularly vulnerable, and what can be done to reduce those risks. Growing interest: "The tool was initially developed in Mali, where it [...]

This brochure describes FAO's area of work on on facilitating the implementation of Article 14 of CEDAW for rural women's empowerment and food security under Strategic Objective 1 implemented by the Cross Cutting Theme on Gender. The brochure contains a rational for why it is important to address gender inequalities for food security and nutrition through political commitment and by incorporating the perspective of gender equality and the empowerment of rural women in sectoral and cross-sectoral policies and strategies. It then describes what FAO can do to support its Member Countries to comply with CEDAW and thus to formulate gender-equitable [...]

This 1.5-hour course guides users through the simulation of a workshop process using a methodology based on malnutrition problem-and-solution trees. It allows users to understand the multisectoral causes of malnutrition and food insecurity, and gain new facilitation skills for successful participatory workshops.  

This e-learning course, entitled "Governing land for women and men" will help you gain a clear understanding of why it is important to take into account gender and social issues when dealing with land tenure, and what actions must be adopted so that women and men from different social groups can equally participate in and benefit from land tenure governance processes.  

The Handbook offers guidance and tools for assessing the impacts of agricultural and food security programmes and projects on child labour in family-based agriculture. In addition, the Handbook aims to sensitize agricultural programme staff on the importance of incorporating child labour prevention as a crosscutting issue in their planning, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system and of systematically considering the potential positive and negative impacts of agricultural programmes on child labo ur. The Handbook furthermore encourages the user to identify good agricultural practices for preventing and reducing child labour in agriculture.

Is trade a threat or an opportunity for food security? Longstanding debates over this question remain unresolved. This is understandable when one considers that the agricultural sector serves a range of vital functions in society. This paper seeks to shed light on this debate by providing an overview of the main opposing narratives and the rationale behind them. It does not seek to advocate one viewpoint over the other. Instead, it seeks to examine the contours of the debate with a view to uncovering why it is so polarized, and how we might move beyond the current impasse in international [...]

Uganda is putting significant efforts toward addressing the constraints responsible for its low agricultural productivity, which affects farmers’ incomes and therefore, their food security. The biggest developments are being seen in improving the added value of its production, as well as in supporting strategic commodities such as livestock and rice. 

The National Inputs Voucher Scheme (NAIVS) will be ending at the close of this cropping year (2013/2014). NAIVS provided access to fertilizer and seeds through subsidized input packages for maize and rice. The Big Results Now (BRN) initiative was launched in 2013, which aims to modernize the agriculture sector by promoting public-private partnership and mainstream market oriented measures.

In Senegal, the government has given great importance and priority to the development and promotion of national rice production to achieve self-sufficiency by 2017. Besides, emphasis has been placed on risk management with the creation of the National Agricultural Insurance Company (CNAAS) and several plans dedicated to flood and water management.

In reaction to weather and market induced food price crises, the government has implemented various measures targeting maize in order to combat low production and high prices such as the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) in 2005/06, export bans in 2005/06, 2008/09 and 2012/13, private domestic trade bans in 2006 and 2008, and import restrictions throughout the entire period under review.