The 2013 OECD publication "Better Policies for Development" emphasises that building global food security requires a cross-cutting approach to policy coherence for development. It explores ways in which more coherent policies in advanced, emerging and developing economies alike, as well as, globally can contribute to improved global food security.
Increasing prices for agricultural commodities offer a historic opportunity to intensify production systems for small-scale farmers in many developing countries. But without agricultural policies supporting them in making use of this opportunity, many of them would lose their access to land and income, resulting in aggravated food insecurity.
Farmer organisations play a crucial role in the development of rural areas. But how influential are they when it comes to defining national policies? What can they achieve, and where are their limits? Our authors demonstrate this with regard to the small farmer organisations in South Africa.
The Future Agricultures Consortium was established in 2005 with support from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) as a learning alliance of leading African and UK-based research organisations. The Consortium provides independent analysis and advice for improving agricultural policy-making. The aim is to encourage critical debate and policy dialogue on the future of agriculture in Africa, elaborating the practical and policy challenges of establishing and sustaining pro-poor agricultural growth.
In 1978, the rural reform began in China, and since then farmers, including the poor ones, have benefited from a steady growth in income and gradually strengthened food security. This article explains how China achieved food security in the past three decades, how the reform process has affected poverty reduction and what aims are established to deal with extreme poverty and child malnutrition for the period of 2011–2020.
Policy-makers often lack information and analytical capacity to effectively monitor how policies impact on different stakeholders. The MAFAP initiative of the Food and Agriculture Organization seeks to bridge this gap.
The changes in global agricultural markets over the past decade have major implications on agricultural policy. What are the challenges and opportunities for development-oriented agricultural policy-making? And what advisory capacities are needed to deliver substantive advice to developing countries’ governments? The answers to these questions constitute a new agenda for contemporary capacity development for agricultural policy advice.
Many a dogma produced by agricultural policies over the past decades has proved disastrous for African agriculture. Ms Rhoda Peace Tumusiime, Commissioner of Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union (AU), looks at lessons learnt and suggests ways to bring progress to Africa’s rural regions.
Initially hailed a huge success, Malawi’s effort to boost agriculture with fertiliser subsidies appears to have met with failure. The author has a look at what went wrong, arguing that developments must be assessed against the backdrop of politics.
Recent studies have shown that modern breeding for high yield, visual appearance and long shelf life led to an unintentional decline in taste and the content of essential nutrients in vegetables. AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center is studying whether traditional vegetables are more nutritious than modern varieties and whether early growth stages of these vegetables offer consumers a higher content of phytonutrients.
Twenty-seven nations are classified as ‘water scarce’, a further 16 as ‘water stressed’. This situation, coupled with the fact that many surface and groundwater systems are shared between two or more states, has led governments to develop sustainable water management strategies. This implies a real commitment by all water users – households, farmers, and industrialists – to use available supplies in ways that reap sustainable and equitable benefits for all.
Last year Angola earned 48 billion US dollars from petroleum. Yet the country that was once Africa’s largest agricultural producer is reduced to importing food. Now the government and private investors want to develop the agricultural sector, in the hope that Angola could become a new Brazil. But will there still be room for small-scale farmers?