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These guidelines are intended to assist competent authorities in their consideration of voluntary third-party assurance (vTPA) programmes. They provide a framework and criteria for assessing the integrity and credibility of the governance structures of vTPA programmes and the reliability of information/data generated by such programmes to support national food control system objectives. The term "Codex Alimentarius" is Latin and means "food code”. Codex standards are international food texts, i.e. standards, codes of practice, codes of hygienic practice, guidelines and other recommendations, established to protect the health of the consumers and to ensure fair practices in the food trade. The collection of [...]

While the aquaculture sector has seen extraordinary global growth over recent years, it also faces a number of important challenges. Although aquaculture may reduce pressure on wild fish stocks, the fact remains that the sector can also have a range of negative environmental impacts. At the same time, a degraded environment, in particular poor water quality, can adversely affect the health of aquatic animals and plants used in aquaculture and therefore the economic sustainability of the sector. Moreover, if appropriate bio-security measures, in the sense of measures to protect aquatic animal health, aquatic plant health and human health, are not [...]

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on food and agriculture have been felt all over the world. As the pandemic unfolded, considerable attention began to be paid to the resilience of agricultural supply chains to COVID-19-related shocks, as well as to natural and human-induced shocks more generally. These "Guidelines to increase the resilience of agricultural supply chains" are intended for policymakers and other stakeholders who need a broad grasp of the concepts, issues and possible approaches involved. Efforts to strengthen resilience to risks need to be based on a thorough analysis of the exposure and vulnerability of supply chains to them, [...]

现在距实现可持续发展目标还剩八年时间。要在后疫情时代实现世界可持续性、复原力及粮食安全与营养目标，迫切需要推动农业粮食体系转型。实现预期转型只能通过强化和利用知识、经验、技能和能力，调动广泛的公共和私营部门参与方采取集体行动，而每一个参与方都具有各自的利益、需求、资源、影响力和能力。“治理”就是在所有各级采取有效和包容的集体行动所需的多维度能力的代名词。在许多国家的具体情况当中，正是治理方面的瓶颈造成了政策预期与实地效果之间存在差距。例如，某项政策措施可能在经济方面很有意义，但如果人们认为它威胁到某个有影响力的利益群体或未能充分兼顾该群体的利益，那么这项措施就很可能无法达到预期效果。因此把握好现有农业粮食体系背后的治理问题 — 包括制度和政治经济两方面 — 就可能成为所有政策或技术支持工作成败的关键。 本文汇总来自粮农组织丰富经验和知识以及全球文献的深刻见解，阐述了一个实操性四阶段框架，用以开展分析并把治理分析和行动整合到国家、区域和全球各级各项措施的制定和实施之中。文章还对有关可持续发展领域治理问题的近期专家思潮进行了评述并着重介绍了粮农组织在自身职责领域内对治理工作的概念性贡献。粮农组织工作中对治理分析的应用不断增加，这将推动循环往复的集体学习过程并对变革潜能进行忠实评估，从而利用在准确把握实地的实际和政策现实的基础上制定的方法对技术解决方案给予补充。治理分析强调持续学习和因地制宜，它将帮助粮农组织大大提高其对成员国政策和技术支持的有效性，推动实现可持续发展，不让任何人掉队。 相关链接： 电子学习：免费在线治理课程（仅英文）

Building on the previous work by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) supporting the identification of priority agricultural sectors and possible locations with high agricultural transformation potential in Uganda, this technical study provides more granular information from Ugandan farmers and district agriculture officers on which investments are needed the most to increase productivity. It identifies and ranks the areas for investments in terms of seeds/breeds, fertilizers/veterinary drugs, mechanization, irrigation, extension, research and development (R&D), roads and electrification for five commodity-district pairs (millet in Soroti, maize in Serere, cassava in Lira, goats in Kibaale and coffee in [...]

This policy brief highlights the main findings from the FAO Agricultural Development Economics Technical Study ‘Identifying commodity-specific priority investments in selected districts of Uganda’. The findings include a ranking from one to eight of priority investment areas – seeds/breeds, fertilizers/veterinary drugs, mechanization, irrigation, extension, research and development for five selected commodities (cassava, coffee, goats, maize and millet) in five districts in Uganda – from the perspective of farmers and local experts, who ultimately produce or support the production of the five commodities. The findings reveal that for commodities cassava, coffee, goats, maize and millet, the Ugandan farmers and district agriculture experts [...]

The analysis of household resilience to food insecurity has become a key technical and evidence-based policy instrument for better tailoring development and humanitarian intervention designs. International development agencies must strengthen the capacity of vulnerable households to anticipate, cope with and adapt to shocks and stressors. Despite the humanitarian and development scope of household resilience strengthening, most resilience academic research and policies focused on protracted crises countries. Moreover, too little attention has been paid to in-depth gender inequality analysis in household resilience to food insecurity, and household food security. This paper aims to (i) analyse the key drivers of household resilience [...]

This brief summarizes the findings of the working paper Resilience to food insecurity and gender differential decomposition in the Gambia, which aims to analyse the key drivers of household resilience to food insecurity and assess differences in resilience capacity and food security indexes across male- and female-headed households. It identifies key drivers of these differentials at the national, urban and rural areas in the Gambia, by using Gambian Integrated Household Surveys on consumption expenditure and poverty-level assessment 2015–2016.

North Macedonia’s ambition to join the European Union requires reforms of the agricultural sector and subsidy system. One major reform is the alignment to the rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union on direct payments, including the “decoupling” of direct payments from production quantities. The decoupling of direct payments is likely to have significant impacts on production decisions, prices and therefore on farmer income. This paper identifies four possible scenarios for North Macedonia to align the direct payment scheme to the regulations of the European Union and subsequently analyses the impact of each scenario on farmer [...]

This policy brief summarizes the key findings and policy recommendations of the corresponding working paper Decoupling direct payments in North Macedonia – Impacts on farmer income. North Macedonia’s ambition to join the European Union requires reforms of the agricultural sector and subsidy system. One major reform is the alignment to the rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union on direct payments, including the “decoupling” of direct payments from production quantities. The decoupling of direct payments is likely to have significant impacts on production decisions, prices and therefore on farmer income. This paper identifies four possible scenarios [...]