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Crop diversification is often promoted as a strategy to achieve climate resilience. However, the benefits to crop diversification may vary depending on household resource endowments. For farm households with few resources, as shown by studies of Burkina Faso, Malawi and Zambia, crop diversification is likely to be an important strategy for managing production and price risk. However, for larger, better capitalized farms, diversification may not be welfare enhancing, because returns to specialization may be higher for these households.

The document follows the agenda of the workshop. It starts with a background description of the situation that has lead to the organization of the technical event. It sets the scene presenting the FAO's strategy on Rural Poverty Reduction and on Social Protection. It starts then with the policy review and the national Priorities presenting the learnings from the Republic of Egypt, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The second part treats the expanding of Social Protection to Rural Areas, presenting the experiences from Leabnon and the expansion of universal health to rural areas. The [...]

This brief brings together the critical mass of evidence emerging from recent rigorous impact evaluations of government-run cash transfer programmes in seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa. These assessments have been developed under the PtoP initiative, led by FAO and UNICEF in partnership with national governments and research organizations.

The food production and supply chain consumes about 30 percent of total end-use energy globally, and contributes to over 20 percent of total annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (excluding emissions or sinks from land use change). A growing worldwide population, changing diets and growing economic development will all serve to increase competition for land, water and energy resources – which already face problems of environmental degradation and, in some cases, scarcity. To address these challenges, agrifood systems at every scale, from the small family farm to the vertically integrated corporate farm level, will have to become more efficient by using [...]

RuralInvest is a free multilingual methodology and toolkit designed to help with the preparation of sustainable agricultural and rural investment projects and business plans. It is participatory, interactive, bottom-up and decentralized way, involving communities, entrepreneurs, government field technicians, project staff and local financing institutions.  Developed by FAO with the support of national and international development partners, RuralInvest contributes to FAO's Strategic Objective to enable inclusive and efficient agricultural food systems.  Any agency, project, organization or private institution managing funds or mobilizing resources for small- and medium-scale agricultural and rural investment can apply RuralInvest to develop: Income-generating projects in agriculture, livestock, fisheries, fish farming, [...]

The report sheds some light on the nature of the challenges that agriculture and food systems are facing now and throughout the 21st century, and provides some insights as to what is at stake and what needs to be done. What emerges is that “business as usual” is no longer an option but calls for major transformations in agricultural systems, in rural economies and in how we manage our natural resources. The following complementary information is available: Overview Summary Infographic FAO's work on Global Perspectives Studies

The smallholder farmers' dataportrait is a comprehensive, systematic and standardized data set on the profile of smallholder farmers across the world.  It generates an image on how small family farmers in developing and emerging countries live their lives. It is about putting in numbers, the constraints they face, and the choices they make so that policies can be informed by evidence to meet the challenge of agricultural development. Currently, the data portrait provides information for fourteen countries. 

This document introduces RIMA-II, the technical evolution of the FAO Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis (RIMA) tool. RIMA was completely and deeply revised by the FAO Resilience Analysis and Policies (RAP) team; it was technically cleared by a restricted group of high-profile experts. RIMA-II will integrate the old version of RIMA with breakpoint and will guarantee extended analysis and new tools for measuring resilience.

This document introduces RIMA-II, the technical evolution of the FAO Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis (RIMA) tool. RIMA was completely and deeply revised by the FAO Resilience Analysis and Policies (RAP) team; it was technically cleared by a restricted group of high-profile experts. RIMA-II will integrate the old version of RIMA with breakpoint and will guarantee extended analysis and new tools for measuring resilience.

This document containing the FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines on agro-environmental policies is mainly directed at people in charge of making and implementing policies on agriculture, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture in Latin America and the Caribbean. The guidelines are the result of an extensive consultation process and debates carried out through the project “Strengthening Agroenvironmental policies in Latin America and the Caribbean Through Dialogue and Exchange of National Experiences,” implemented by Brazil between 2012 and 2015 in the framework of South-South Cooperation, with the collaboration of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Nicaragua in the fi rst stage, and Costa Rica, Cuba, Panama and Paraguay in the second [...]