Agricultural Policies

Millions are severely malnourished in a world where there is enough for all. Hunger and malnutrition stalk more than 3.1 billion people. Yet, widespread hunger in all its forms is a problem which has been largely solved at the macro level in today’s high-income, industrialized countries. Their “escape from hunger and premature death” is a fairly recent phenomenon. It began around 300 years ago, continued for most of the 20th century and is still ongoing today. The problems faced by ...

The agricultural sector is responsible for 72% of global water withdrawals, and is the biggest employer of the world’s most vulnerable and poor populations. Still, close to 84% of smallholder farms in low- and middle-income economies are located in water-scarce regions, with less than one third of them having access to irrigation (UN, 2024). These small-scale farmers also bear the heavy weight of land degradation and climate crisis. It is estimated that food production will need to ...

Cette étude est consacrée à l’Éthiopie, pays dont l’histoire remonte à la nuit des temps et où l’agriculture représente 70 % à 80 % des emplois. Nation agricole, donc, mais aussi pays au potentiel minier connu, lequel demeure sous-exploité. Depuis le début du vingt-et-unième siècle, l’Éthiopie a développé des liens privilégiés avec une multitude de puissances, émergentes notamment. Au premier chef, la Chine trône en partenaire privilégié, auquel s’ajoutent des p ...

The rise of agriculture technology (AgTech) solutions in Africa has opened significant avenues to transform food systems and tackle long-standing obstacles to enhance smallholder productivity. To effectively expand these promising, yet nascent, AgTech solutions, collaborative efforts involving African governments, development partners, and AgTech innovators are essential. Scaling these solutions requires African governments to establish comprehensive digital-infrastructure and devel ...

This policy brief was originally published on T20 India website   Supportive policies for tropical agriculture have helped millions of small-scale farmers in Brazil step out of poverty by improving government capacity to design legal frameworks to strengthen agricultural production and family farming. Scientific and technological developments have enabled small-scale Brazilian farmers to produce food while considering local tropical conditions. In contrast, tropical agriculture s ...

It is estimated that $1 trillion to $6 trillion per year (up to 2050) needs to be invested globally if the world is to stay below the 2°C global warming ceiling of the Paris Agreement and to meet its adaptation goals. Currently, investments stand at about $630 billion per year, way below the original target. And although great efforts have been made in the climate-finance area, more than 70% of the funds deployed have gone to one sector, renewable energy, followed by the transportat ...

The fundamental role that water resources play in human development has been highlighted in multiple ways; the United Nations SDGs underline 17 different goals and over a hundred targets to be achieved by 2030. Out of 169 SDG targets, 59 were found to have direct links and synergies with the water goal SDG6 (UN Water, 2016). Careful policy making and interventions need to be implemented to avoid conflict among sectors and tradeoffs must be well established. The Integrated Water Reso ...

La double crise actuelle de l’énergie et du conflit militaire en Ukraine freine énormément les processus qui se développaient dans l’ère post-Covid 19. Dans ce contexte fragile et tourmenté, la vulnérabilité touche également les chaînes globales de valeur et les systèmes agroalimentaires. La vulnérabilité de la Chaîne Globale de Valeur (GVC) est une fonction de la capacité d’adaptation (CA) face aux chocs et aux impacts potentiels que présentent la fragmentation du ...

Sleepless nights and the tireless search for compromise allowed WTO members to agree on concrete deliverables during the WTO 12th Ministerial Conference held last June. Those results reinforce Multilateralism. And this is a significant gain given the multiplicity of global crises that surround us. The Outcome include 6 Agreements, Declarations and Ministerial Decisions that respond to some of today's challenges, notably on Fisheries and Ocean Sustainability as well as responses to P ...

Implications of Food Systems for Food Security: The case of the Republic of Mozambique Mozambique is resource-rich and strategically located on the east coast of Africa between Tanzania and South Africa. Its mineral wealth includes coal, iron ore, bauxite, copper, gold, rubies, and natural gas. Valuable marine stocks include crustaceans, demersal and pelagic fish which populate its long coastline. Its agriculture is endowed with plentiful land, water, and a generally favorable clima ...

The world is facing its worst food crisis in 70 years as a perfect storm of geopolitical events contributes to a spike in prices. Wheat alone has jumped 53% since the start of the year. Alarmingly, a number of governments have responded to the crisis with export bans. Governments and organizations worldwide must act decisively to avoid knee-jerk neo-mercantilism, which would add to the volatility in the global economy. Globalization is at a fragile moment, and mercantilism still lur ...

Oil dominates Nigeria’s economy- “Africa’s Giant”. Oil revenues are both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because they are the single most important contributor to government revenues; a curse because, through the Dutch Disease, they undermine the productivity and competitiveness of other non-oil sectors, primarily agriculture and agri-processing; and manufacturing, two major sources of non-oil employment and incomes. Since Nigerian governments did not try to counter the Dutch Dis ...

Following on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic and severe drought in North Africa, the Russian invasion of Ukraine – large exporters of food and, in the case of Russia, energy— may inflict increased hunger on the food insecure in Morocco – despite mitigating measures by the government. Morocco is so far successfully shielding its large poor and vulnerable population by subsidizing essential commodities. With memories of the violent protests during the 2007/08 food and fuel crisis s ...

For the second time, Côte d'Ivoire is known for being a "miracle economy" –high aggregate GDP growth of 8% per year since 2012. Despite this achievement, its food systems are unable to deliver food security to most Ivoirians. These systems are being undermined by several structural factors, which include broad-based low productivity and limited diversification of its agri-food sector; the high numbers of extremely poor, some 30% of the population; and the vulnerable who are millions ...

The transformative potential of regional market integration for a large trading bloc is well exemplified by the European Union which started integration on a modest scale. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) also started on a modest scale and has delivered benefits in terms of promoting growth through greater regional market integration, both within ASEAN and in Asia more generally. ASEAN however runs on different principles to the EU (though there are some similariti ...

This paper estimates the economic impacts of climate change over the Brazilian regions until the end of the century. We estimate the direct and indirect impact of the projected changes in climate on the yield of the country’s main crops. The results point to a broad spatial heterogeneity of impacts across the country. Using the extreme scenarios created by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (RCP 2.6 and 8.5), our predictions indicate that the average annual losses ...

Within the context of the United Nations Food Systems Summit taking place in September 2021, this brief discusses key drivers of food systems in Africa, as well as the challenges and opportunities for transformation. It concludes with specific policy options that could considerably accelerate progress towards the transformation of food systems across the continent. Specifically, this policy brief makes five recommendations: it recommends that investment in research and development f ...

Low-productivity, subsistence-smallholder agriculture everywhere faces tremendous new challenges, in addition to decades-old constraints. Smallholders are threatened by being bypassed by the rise and dominance of domestic and global value chains (DVCs, GVCs). They are also being threatened by global warming, which is already rewriting the basic parameters of temperature and precipitation on which their entire activities depend. These global forces are much too powerful for any farmi ...

If there is any silver lining to this COVID-19 pandemic, it is the realization of the importance of some of what we hold most dear: food security, and the foundations of hope. Food Security: Those of us who enjoy food security realize how much we depend on every link of the agri-food chain. For urbanites, a first sign that this chain is broken is empty shelves—supply shortages and panic buying. We suddenly appreciate the appeal of food self-sufficiency or food sovereignty: develop ...

Across Africa, many rural communities still depend on manual and animal power for their farm needs, whether it is for production, harvesting or postharvest activities. In fact, in sub-Saharan Africa, engine power represents a meagre 10 per cent of all energy used on farms, compared to 50 per cent in developing regions. Without access to mechanised tools and technologies, farming is a tough, laborious and time-consuming process. Farmers are often left with small harvests, low income ...

The Atlantic Current’s 6th edition provides overview, fresh insights, latest data, and broader analysis on the Atlantic space’s current challenges, as well as their implications for the South. Different chapters explore emerging trends and critical issues, such as the World Trade Organization reform, Brexit and the future of EU, the expansion of militancy in the Sahel and Coastal Africa, the role of cultural diplomacy and the deepening of Sino-African relations within a shifting an ...

Subsidizing fertilizer prices has been a popular policy tool to increase fertilizer use, but should it be? The main message of this Policy Brief is that it should not be, despite its appeal to politicians and recipient farmers alike. Instead, policy makers should seriously consider a holistic approach to promoting fertilizer. A holistic approach has the potential of effectively addressing a range of key interlocking constraints which condemn smallholders to low input, low productivi ...