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This technical paper focuses primarily on price transmissions in small-scale and large-scale fishery and aquaculture value chains in 14 developed and developing countries. Although the study is focused on the small-scale sector, both the small-scale and large-scale sectors were analysed in order to demonstrate differences between the two. The document begins with an overview of the entire project and its global implications, reviewing the importance of fisheries and aquaculture to livelihoods, food security and trade as well as the rationale for value chain analysis. It then presents detailed and summarized country-specific information on the research and analysis conducted, presenting analysis [...]

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 [...]

This volume outlines a simple and practical way to analyse the design and implementation of food and nutrition security (FNS) policies and programmes from a right to food perspective. The right to food approach, as an instrument to help formulate FNS policies and programmes, is emphasized. The primary focus is on national overarching FNS policies. The question of how to assess sector policies that may have direct or indirect impacts on food security and nutrition security is also addressed. Good policies need an enabling implementation environment, which includes evidence-based decisions, adequate financial and human resources and sound governance. These aspects [...]

The 2014 edition of the State of the World’s Forests report (also known as SOFO) has been released by FAO, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. This coincides with the opening of the 22nd Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry (COFO) and the World Forest Week. SOFO 2014 deals with the existing knowledge gaps on the socioeconomic benefits provided by forests. It gathers and analyses data already available on the topic. It also makes recommendations to improve this information. The lack of information about the socioeconomic dimension of forests and the need to fill this gap was also one of [...]

Over the coming 35 years, agriculture will face an unprecedented confluence of pressures, including a 30 percent increase in the global population, intensifying competition for increasingly scarce land, water and energy resources, and the existential threat of climate change. To provide for a population projected to reach 9.3 billion in 2050 and support changing dietary patterns, estimates are that food production will need to increase from the current 8.4 billion tonnes to almost 13.5 billion tonnes a year. Achieving that level of production from an already seriously depleted natural resource base will be impossible without profound changes in our food [...]

The poor are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of high and volatile food prices. Available evidence, while not conclusive, indicates that both urban and rural poor, including poor farmers, are particularly exposed because they are typically net buyers of food (Ivanic and Martin, 2008). Food accounts for as much as three-quarters of the expenditures of poor households in some countries.

This publication presents evidence with regard to the effectiveness of policies and programmes introduced in response to rising food prices in eight selected Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru. The case studies provide insights into the economic and policy environment at the time of the first price spike of 2007–08, analyse the measures that were introduced in response and discuss the evidence on the effects on the food security situation. As such they provide lessons learned in terms of the effectiveness of the different measures in achieving the intended food security goals, including [...]

The aim of this policy brief is to increase awareness among policy makers and the general public about the vital role of tropical forests in providing environmental services and the increasing need for beneficiaries to compensate forest owners or managers for those services. The brief builds on the insights gained at the International Forum on Payments for Environmental Services of Tropical Forests, which was held in San José, Costa Rica, in April 2014. It sets out the rationale for, and the constraints faced by, PES schemes, and key recommendations for scaling them up.

In a world where more than 800 million continue to suffer from chronic malnourishment and where the global population is expected to grow by another 2 billion to reach 9.6 billion people by 2050 – with a concentration in coastal urban areas – we must meet the huge challenge of feeding our planet while safeguarding its natural resources for future generations. This new edition of The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) highlights the significant role that fisheries and aquaculture plays in eliminating hunger, promoting health and reducing poverty. Never before have people consumed so much fish or depended [...]

During the XXXII Regional FAO Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Buenos Aires in March 2012, one of the issues proposed for the agenda and agreed upon by the participants was that “FAO will organize a broad and dynamic debate with the participation of the civil society and academia to discuss the concept of food sovereignty, the meaning of which has been not been agreed upon by FAO Member States and the United Nations System.” (FAO, 2012, paragraph 25) To this end, this ad h oc document, prepared by the consultant Gustavo Gordillo, contains information and analysis [...]