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The purpose of this report is to document some of the Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools (JFFLS) experiences to date, and allow readers to reflect on approaches used in the various JFFLS in the countries where they have been set up. The JFFLS approach, developed by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), has been operational since 2003 and has been recently adapted to provide a response to emergency situations. The goal of the JFFLS is to empower vulnerable youths, giving them livelihood options and long-term food security while minimizing [...]

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 [...]

The literature available on best practices for providing policy assistance and influencing effectively national policy processes is insufficient to provide appropriate guidance to those whose work it is to help countries in shaping their policies and ensure that the advice they provide has a good chance of being adopted by governments.  Based on these premises, this study, qualitative in nature, uses the results of a review of existing literature, a consultation with 25 agencies conducting policy assistance activities and an in-depth review of 12 FAO policy assistance projects to highlight a series of good practices that can contribute to enhancing the [...]

Designed to empower orphans and other vulnerable children aged 12 to 18 years who live in communities where HIV/AIDS has had a strong impact on food security.

This analytical tool illustrates the concept of social welfare and the possible ways to define social welfare functions. In particular, it deals with how to pass from inequality to social welfare analysis and how social welfare analysis may embody different attitudes with regard to inequality aversion. A step-by-step procedure and numerical examples are also discussed to give operational content to the tool. For more information, see also: Charting Income Inequality. The Lorenz Curve. EASYPol Series 000 Social Welfare Analysis of Income Distributions: Ranking Income Distributions with Lorenz Curves. EASYPol Series 001 Social Welfare Analysis of Income Distributions: Ranking Income Distributions with Generalised Lorenz Curves. [...]

Sustainable use, development and conservation of the world’s livestock genetic resources are of vital importance to agriculture, food production, rural development and the environment. In recognition of the need to develop an effective framework for the management of these resources and to address the threat of genetic erosion, 109 countries came together in September 2007 at the first International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture held in Interlaken, Switzerland. The Conference adopted the Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources – which includes 23 strategic priorities for action to promote the wise management of these [...]

The purpose of this document is to provide greater insight into the possible implications of soybean expansion for food security, rural development and agricultural policies in these countries for the period 2005-2014. Based on country studies carried out for the investigation, this document summarizes the causes of soybean expansion in the last ten years and presents the main changes that have accompanied the process. It also quantifies in approximate terms, the growth of soybean and its products (meal and oil) between 2005 and 2014, explores the main implications of this expansion and offers a number of analytical conclusions.

The State of Food and Agriculture 2007 explores the potential for agriculture to provide enhanced levels of environmental services alongside the production of food and fibre. The report concludes that demand for environmental services from agriculture – including climate change mitigation, improved watershed management and biodiversity preservation – will increase in the future, but better incentives to farmers are needed if agriculture is to meet this demand. As one among several other possible policy tools, payments to farmers for environmental services hold promise as a flexible approach to enhancing farmer incentives to sustain and improve the ecosystems on which we [...]

This analytical tool illustrates the concept of weighting samples in survey analysis. In particular, it deals with: a) the concept of weights and inflation factors; b) why weights are important in calculating statistical measures; c) how disregarding weights may lead to misleading results in empirical analysis. This paper is part of the FAO Policy series: EASYPol-Resources for policy making (in agriculture, rural development and food security). You can find other EASYPol series' resources in the Resources section of this website, typing "EASYPol" in the free text search.

This analytical tool illustrates how to carry out cost-benefit calculations of investment projects in WinDASI, after data are entered in the database. It explains, by means of a step-by step procedure, how to calculate flows of physical quantities of outputs, inputs and investment items; flows of current, discounted and cumulative costs, benefits, and net benefits; flows of incremental (With-Without project) current, discounted and cumulative net benefits; and project indicators such as the Net Present Value (NPV), the Internal Rate of Return (IRR), the Benefit/Cost Ratio, (BCR), the Switching Values (SVs) and Sensitivity Analysis. Instructions are provided on how to carry out [...]