What is it about?
ABSTRACT
Agricultural biodiversity is dynamically managed by smaller-scale food providers, who have co-evolved with their crops and livestock and agroecosystems over millennia. It encompasses not only the species directly harvested for food etc. but also all the support species that provide essential ecosystem functions, which support the productive environment.

Agricultural biodiversity increased over millennia with the movement of peoples across the globe. However, more recently with the rampant spread of the industrial production of commodities, livestock and fisheries, agricultural biodiversity is haemorrhaging.

Yet, it is the smaller-scale food providers – the world’s peasants – who provide nourishment for most people in the world through their biodiverse and ecologically-resilient production systems, developed in the framework of food sovereignty, who sustain agricultural biodiversity. Their production systems enhance agricultural biodiversity and enable it to adapt to changes in agroecosystems due to climate change and other threats.

This article calls for the breaking of the value chains which bind industrial producers to unsustainable and biodiversity-destroying production and consumption systems. It also calls for the protection of the rights of smaller-scale, biodiversity-enhancing food providers whose localised food webs developed in the framework of food sovereignty will continue to provide food for most people today and tomorrow as well as sustaining and enhancing agricultural biodiversity for future generations. Read more

Who Will Feed Us? is a data-driven report full of unexpected statistics that reveal a tale of two food systems. It upturns common assumptions about who feeds whom in a hungry world threatened by climate change.

Some highlights of the report:

• Peasants (not food corporations) feed the world: 70% of the world’s population is fed by the Peasant Food Web, using only 25% of resources.
• Industrial food production fails to feed: Only 24% of the food produced by the Industrial Food
  Chain actually reaches people – the rest is wasted in meat production inefficiencies; lost in transport, storage and at the household; and diverted to non-food products.
• Industrial food costs us more: For every dollar spent on industrial food, it costs another 2 dollars to clean up the mess

The report is also available in Spanish and French

Ce rapport de 32 pages donne un aperçu de la situation mondiale des investissements dans l’agriculture. Il fournit des exemples de plusieurs pays et présente des recommandations pour des investissements futurs dans une agriculture durable à petite échelle.

L’objectif du rapport est de:
Augmenter les connaissances, la sensibilisation et les discussions sur les investissements dans l’agriculture durable à petite échelle parmi les organisations d’agriculteurs, les ONG, les institutions et les investisseurs travaillant dans l’agriculture, en particulier dans les pays en développement, ainsi que les décideurs et les institutions des pays de l’OCDE qui s’occupent de l’aide publique au développement (APD).

Contribuer à l’augmentation des investissements publics et privés dans l’agriculture durable à petite échelle.

This report from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES) reviews the latest evidence on the whole range of health impacts associated with food systems around the world to provide a full picture. It further examines the political economy of food systems: why evidence gaps persist, why negative impacts are systematically reproduced, and why certain problems are not politically prioritized.

This booklet from Focus on the Global South, is intended to serve as a basic background resource for grassroots groups, to make links between gender and agroecology, and to understand agroecology’s potential to address gender inequalities.

This 32 page report gives an overview of the global situation of investments in agriculture. It provides examples from several countries and present recommendations for future investments in small-scale sustainable agriculture.

• The aim of the report is to:
  Increase knowledge, awareness and discussions about investments in small-scale sustainable agriculture among farmers’ organizations, NGOs, institutions and investors working in agriculture, especially in developing countries, as well as decision-makers and institutions in OECD-countries dealing with official development assistance (ODA).
• Contribute to increased public and private investments in small-scale sustainable agriculture.

This report primarily focuses on agroecology projects and the views of Caritas France’s partners in the Global South. The wide range of practices is tailored to providing local solutions for sustainable agriculture in myriad different regions. All the initiatives are built on the principles of empowerment, action, resilience and integration of the social dimension.

The report was written by Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Hilal Elver, in collaboration with the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes. In the report, a clearer account is provided of global pesticide use in agriculture and its impact on human rights; the negative consequences that pesticide practices have had on human health, the environment and society, which are underreported and monitored in the shadow of a prevailing and narrow focus on “food security”, are described; and the environmental and human rights regimes are examined to determine whether the constituent rules are sufficient to protect farm workers, consumers, and vulnerable groups, as well as the natural resources that are necessary to support sustainable food systems.

The report concludes with a set of important recommendations, which include – among the others – a call  to the international community to work on a comprehensive binding treaty to regulate and reduce the use of hazardous pesticides  taking into account human rights principles, the promotion of agroecology, the development of national action plans that support alternative sustainable practices.

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) joined forces to estimate what it would cost to end hunger, and the contribution that donors need to make. We consider that a country has achieved this goal when the number of hungry people is less than 5 per cent of the population.

Their findings show the goal is achievable and affordable. We found that it will cost USD 11 billion a year in additional public investment to largely end hunger in developing countries. Donors will need to provide USD 4 billion of the total—which is a 3 per cent increase on current aid levels.

Download report and presentation.

Are today’s food and agricultural systems capable of meeting the needs of a global population that is projected to reach more than nine billion by midcentury? Can we achieve the required production increases, even if this implies adding pressure to already dwindling land and water resources, and do so in a context of climate change? This publication tries to answer these questions.

What will be needed to realize the vision of a world free from hunger and malnutrition?After shedding light on the nature of the challenges that agriculture and food systems are facing now and throughout the 21st century, the study provides insights into what is at stake and what needs to be done. “Business as usual” is not an option. Major transformations in agricultural systems, rural economies and natural resources management are necessary. The present study was undertaken for the quadrennial review of FAO’s strategic framework and for the preparation of the Organization Medium-Term plan 2018-2021.