On Planning for Development:
rural development
agrarian policies - agribusiness - landgrab - food - migration - poverty
- globalization
|
Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations
Food for cities
Food, Cities and
Agriculture: challenges and priorities.
A briefing note: "More and more of the world’s population is becoming
concentrated in and around large cities. Ensuring the right to have
access to safe and nutritious food to the billions of people living in
cities represents a global development challenge of the highest order.
- An FAO briefing note highlights the major issues related to
food, agriculture and cities and provides a set of recommendations for
action at the global, national and local level" (link
to the document).
- Open discussion now on Web-based forum at: http://km.fao.org/fsn/
(November 5, 2009)
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From FAO - How to Feed the World 2050 -
High-level expert forum
Rome - 12-13 October 2009
Technical papers from the Expert Meeting on
How to Feed the World in 2050
FAO, Rome, 24-26 June 2009
These papers were commissioned by
FAO to provide technical background material for the High-Level Expert
Forum on "How to Feed the World in 2050" to be held at FAO, Rome, 12-13
October 2009. Please see the Expert Meeting report for expert comments
on these papers as well as additional presentations made at the June
2009 Expert Meeting.
|
From Worldwatch Institute
Grain Production
Continues Growth After Mixed Decade
by Alice McKeown | October 29, 2009
For the second year in a row, world
grain production rose in 2008, with farmers producing some 2.287
billion tons. The record harvest was up more than 7 percent over the
previous year and caps a decade in which only half the years registered
gains. Per capita production also recovered, reaching 339 kilograms per
person. The total amount of land dedicated to grain harvests worldwide
has remained relatively stable over the past 15 years at around 700
million hectares-though it was below the average experienced from 1975
to 1986-but yields have increased 146 percent over the last 46 years.
Three of the top four global agricultural crops by quantity are grains:
maize, rice, and wheat (sugarcane is the fourth). Other cereals and
grains include millet, sorghum, oats, barley, quinoa, and rye. Together
these crops make up nearly half of global daily calorie consumption and
are considered critical for global food security. Some 35 percent of
all grains in 2008 were used to feed industrial livestock, while 47
percent were consumed by humans.
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Destroying African Agriculture
By Walden Bello - 7 June 2008
Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current
global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to
biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the
more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are
largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the
World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade
Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains
|
From The
World Bank
Global Agricultural Trade and
Developing Countries- 2005
Editors: M. Ataman Aksoy and
John C. Beghin
Agricultural Trade Reforms Key To Reducing Poverty
WASHINGTON, January 10, 2005 — With almost 70 percent of the poor
people in developing countries living in rural areas, agricultural
sector reforms - in particular global trade liberalization - will be
crucial in giving them opportunities for better lives, according to a
new World Bank report released today.
The report, Global Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries,
edited by M. Ataman Aksoy and John C. Beghin, notes that despite the
recent framework agreement in Geneva, agricultural protection continues
to be among the most contentious issues in global trade negotiations.
High protection of agriculture in industrial countries was the main
cause of the breakdown of the Cancún Ministerial Meetings in 2003, and
remains among the key outstanding issues in the Doha Round of global
trade negotiations. |
FOOD AND
AGRICULTURE ORGANISATION
|
United Nations University
World Institute for
Development Economic Research:
RP2006/69
Yianna Lambrou and Regina Laub
Gender,
Local Knowledge, and Lessons Learnt in Documenting and Conserving
Agrobiodiversity
This paper explores the linkages between gender, local knowledge
systems and agrobiodiversity
for food security by using the case study of LinKS, a regional FAO
project in Mozambique,
Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Tanzania over a period of eight years and now
concluded. The
project aimed to raise awareness on how rural men and women use and
manage
agrobiodiversity, and to promote the importance of local knowledge for
food security and
sustainable agrobiodiversity at local, institutional and policy levels
by working with a diverse
range of stakeholders to strengthen their ability to recognize and
value farmers’ knowledge and
to use gender-sensitive and participatory approaches in their work.
This was done through three
key activities: capacity building, research and communication. The
results of the LinKS study
show clearly that men and women farmers hold very specific local
knowledge about the plants
and animals they manage. Local knowledge, gender and agrobiodiversity
are closely
interrelated. If one of these elements is threatened, the risk of
losing agrobiodiversity increases...
RP2006/33
Annelies Zoomers
Three
Decades of Rural Development Projects in Asia, Latin America, and
Africa:
Learning From Successes and Failures
This article aims to contribute to the discussion about how to make
development
interventions more effective by analyzing the factors contributing to
the success or
failure of rural development projects. We made an aggregate level
analysis of 46
projects in the field of agricultural research (AR), water management
(WM), natural
resource management (NRM), and integrated rural development (IRD),
financed by the
Netherlands’ Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS)
and carried out
between 1975-2005 in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Making a
distinction between
the successful projects and failures, we showed the possibilities and
limitations...
RP2005/07
Tony Addison
Agricultural
Development for Peace
Agricultural development can contribute significantly to peace by
raising incomes and
employment, thereby reducing the social frustrations that give rise to
violence.
Agricultural growth also generates revenues for governments, allowing
them to redress
the grievances of disadvantaged populations. In this way, growth can be
made more
equitable, an effect that is enhanced if inequalities in access to
natural capital, especially
to land, are addressed as well. Agriculture is critical for countries
rebuilding from war,
especially in making recovery work for the poor. And by raising per
capita incomes,
agricultural development underpins new democracies. Agricultural
development thereby
supports political strategies for peace-building and democratization.
DP2003/54
Martin Ravallion
Externalities in
Rural Development: Evidence for China
The paper tests for external effects of local economic activity on
consumption and income
growth at the farm household level using panel data from four provinces
of post-reform
rural China. The tests allow for nonstationary fixed effects in the
consumption growth
process. Evidence is found of geographic externalities, stemming from
spillover effects of
the level and composition of local economic activity and private
returns to local human and
physical infrastructure endowments. The results suggest an explanation
for rural
underdevelopment arising from underinvestment in certain
externality-generating
activities, of which agricultural development emerges as the most
important.
|
M. Lamine Gakou (1987)
The crisis in African
agriculture - Studies on African Political Economy
Our aim in undertaking this work is to demonstrate, or provide further
confirmation that the crisis affecting Africa particularly - even
though it is more widespread - has its profound roots in the
integration of African economies into the world capitalist system.
The agricultural sectors and the rural areas are most often the ones
most affected because of this integration.
The case of agriculture, which, in most countries, is in crisis because
it is essentially oriented towards the world market and not towards the
feeding of the local people, shows that it is idle for the
underdeveloped countries, and particularly for Africa, to seek
solutions to their problems in the framework of a system whose modus
operandi and rules of the game operate in such a way that it is
always the poorest and economically weakest that suffer the most
serious consequences of the crisis.
If the developed capitalist countries can make the underdeveloped
countries bear at least a part of the burden of their own crisis, in
these countries and in Africa in particular, the so-called
'non-modern', 'traditional' sectors, agriculture above all, bear more
of the burden. Other explanations can be found for the crisis, but we
feel that these explanations can be no more than secondary, the
fundamental cause being the integration of Africa into a system over
which it has absolutely no control.
|
| The World Bank on Rural
Development |
| The World Bank on rural poverty
in Latin America and the Caribbean |
J. O. Lanjouw and P. Lanjouw -
1995
Rural Non-Farm
Employment: A Survey
The rural non-farm sector is a poorly understood component of the rural
economy and we know relatively little about its role in the broader
development process. This gap in our knowledge is the product of the
sector's great heterogeneity (see Box 1 for examples), coupled with a
dearth, until recently, of empirical or theoretical attention. As
expressed by Liedholm and Chuta (1990, pg 327) "...policy makers and
planners charged with the formulation of policies and programs to
assist rural small-scale industry in the Third World are often forced
to make decisions that are 'unencumbered by evidence'." In fact until
recently, a commonly held view has been that rural off-farm employment
is a low productivity sector producing low quality goods. As such, it
was expected to wither away as a country developed and incomes rose,
and its withering was seen as a positive rather than a negative
occurrence. A corollary of this view is that government need not worry
about the health of this sector in a pro-active sense, nor be concerned
about negative repercussions on the rural non-farm sector arising from
government policies directed at other objectives. More recently opinion
has swung away from this view,...
|
A. Figueroa, Catholic University
of Peru - 1999
Social exclusion and
rural development
This paper examines factors that explain social inequalities in the
Third World. It
develops a new theoretical approach, which focuses on social inequality
and
introduces the concept of social exclusion into the analysis. In so
doing, it specially
addresses the question: is inequality a result of some peculiar form of
social
integration, or rather a result of some exclusions taking place in the
social process?
Social inequality is conceived in this paper in broader terms than
income inequality.
The social process is, for analytical purposes, divided into the three
components:
economic, political, and cultural. Social inequality refers to the
aggregation of
inequality on these components.
Social exclusion is also considered in a particular way. As a fact of
life, we know
that the same group of people who participate in some social relations
may, at the
same time, be excluded from others. Hence, to say that a person is
excluded from
something is a purely descriptive statement, with no analytical value.
In analytical
terms, the question is whether there are some exclusions that have
important effects
upon social inequality. Which are these exclusions in a particular
society? Who is
excluded and from what? Why do these exclusions take place?
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Foreign Policy IN FOCUS
Food and Farm |
Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Learning resources:
Food Security
E-learning Course
Fostering Participation in Development
Payment for Environmental Services
|
World Food Summits:
What is the
World Food Summit?
1996
2001
2009 (“L’Aquila” Joint Statement on Global Food Security)
|
|
From FAO:
Corporate
Document Repository:
The State of
Food Agriculture Reports
The complete series
2008 Biofuels: prospects,
risks and opportunities
The implications of the recent rapid growth in production of biofuels
based on agricultural commodities. The boom in liquid biofuels has been
largely induced by policies in developed countries. More than at any
time in the past three
decades, the world’s attention is focused
this year on food and agriculture. A variety
of factors have combined to raise food
prices to the highest levels since the 1970s
(in real terms), with serious implications
for food security among poor populations
around the world. One of the most
frequently mentioned contributing factors
is the rapid recent growth in the use of
agricultural commodities – including some
food crops – for the production of biofuels.
Yet the impact of biofuels on food prices
remains the subject of considerable debate,
as does their potential to contribute to
energy security, climate-change mitigation
and agricultural development. Even while
this debate continues, countries around the
world confront important choices about
policies and investments regarding biofuels.
These were among the topics discussed
at FAO in June 2008 by delegations from
181 countries attending the High-Level
Conference on World Food Security: the
Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy.
Given the urgency of these choices and the
magnitude of their potential consequences,
participants at the Conference agreed that
careful assessment of the prospects, risks and
opportunities posed by biofuels is essential.
This is the focus of FAO’s 2008 report on the
State of Food and Agriculture.
2007:
Paying farmers for
environmental services
The State of Food and Agriculture 2007 explores the potential for
agriculture to provide enhanced levels of environmental services
alongside the production of food and fi bre. The report concludes that
demand for environmental services from agriculture - including climate
change mitigation, improved watershed management and biodiversity
preservation - will increase in the future, but better incentives to
farmers are needed if agriculture is to meet this demand. As one among
several other possible policy tools, payments to farmers for
environmental services hold promise as a fl exible approach to
enhancing farmer incentives to sustain and improve the ecosystems on
which we all depend. Nevertheless, challenges must be overcome if the
potential of this approach is to be realized, especially in developing
countries. Policy efforts at international and national levels are
necessary to establish the basis for such payments. The design of
cost-effective programmes requires careful analysis of the specifi c
biophysical and socio-economic contexts and consideration of the
poverty impacts programmes may have. By clarifying the challenges that
need to be addressed in implementing such an approach, this report is
intended to contribute to the realization of its potential.
2006:
Food aid for food
security?
The State of Food and Agriculture 2006 examines the issues and
controversies surrounding international food aid and seeks to find ways
to preserve its essential humanitarian role while minimizing the
possibility of harmful secondary impacts. Food aid has rightly been
credited with saving millions of lives; indeed, it is often the only
thing standing between vulnerable people and death. Yet food aid is
sharply criticized as a donor-driven response that creates dependency
on the part of recipients and undermines local agricultural producers
and traders upon whom sustainable food security depends. The economic
evidence regarding these issues is surprisingly thin, but it confirms
that the timing and targeting of food aid are central to achieving
immediate food security objectives while minimizing the potential for
harm. Reforms to the international food aid system are necessary but
they should be undertaken carefully because lives are at risk.
2005:
Agricultural trade and
poverty: Can trade work for the poor?
The
State of Food and Agriculture 2005 examines the linkages among
agriculture, trade and poverty and asks whether international
agricultural trade, and its further reform, can help overcome extreme
poverty and hunger.
The
global statistics on poverty and hunger are all too familiar. An
estimated 1.2 billion people live on less than one dollar a day
and FAO's most recent estimates indicate that 852 million people
lack sufficient food for an active and healthy life. There is now also
an increased awareness that extreme poverty and hunger are largely
rural phenomena. Most of the world's poor and hungry people live in
rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. To the
extent that agriculture is affected by trade, trade will necessarily
affect the livelihoods and food security of the world's most vulnerable
people.
The
global economy is becoming increasingly integrated through trade, and
agriculture is part of this larger trend. For some countries,
agricultural trade expansion - sparked by agricultural and trade policy
reforms - has contributed to a period of rapid pro-poor economic
growth. Indeed, some of the countries that have been most successful in
reducing hunger and extreme poverty have relied on trade in
agricultural products, either exports or imports or both, as an
essential element of their development strategy.
Many of
the poorest countries however, have not had the same positive
experience. Rather, they are becoming more marginalized and vulnerable,
depending on imports for a rising share of their food needs without
being able to expand and diversify their agricultural or
non-agricultural exports. FAO believes that the reform process under
way must consider the specific circumstances of these countries,
particularly their stage of agricultural development and the
complementary policies needed to ensure their successful integration
into global agricultural markets.
FAO has
long recognized that agricultural trade is vital for food security,
poverty alleviation and economic growth. Food imports are a fundamental
means of supplementing local production in ensuring the provision of
minimum supplies of basic foodstuffs in many countries. Agricultural
exports are an important source of foreign exchange earnings and rural
income in many developing countries. Reducing trade-distorting
agricultural subsidies and barriers to agricultural trade can serve as
a catalyst for growth as producers worldwide could then compete on the
basis of their comparative advantage.
However,
international trade in agricultural products is characterized by a
number of problems that do not allow competition on the basis of
comparative advantage. The markets for many temperate-zone products and
basic food commodities are substantially distorted by government
subsidies and protection, particularly in Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Some developed countries
continue to subsidize their farmers and, where this leads to market
surpluses, even their agricultural exports. For other agricultural
products, particularly tropical ones such as coffee, tea, natural
fibres, tropical fruits and vegetables, the problems include high as
well as complex and seasonal tariffs and significant tariff escalation.
2003-4:
Agricultural
Biotechnology : Meeting the needs of the poor?
This
edition of The State of Food and Agriculture explores the
potential for agricultural biotechnology to address the needs of the
world's poor and food-insecure. Agriculture continues to face serious
challenges, including feeding an additional two billion people by the
year 2030 from an increasingly fragile natural resource base. The
effective transfer of existing technologies to poor rural communities
and the development of new and safe biotechnologies can greatly enhance
the prospects for sustainably improving agricultural productivity today
and in the future. But technology alone cannot solve the problems of
the poor and some aspects of biotechnology, particularly the
socio-economic impacts and the food safety and environmental
implications, need to be carefully assessed.
Developing
biotechnology in ways that contribute to the sustainable development of
agriculture, fisheries and forestry can help significantly in meeting
the food and livelihood needs of a growing population. The study of
genomics and molecular markers, for example, can facilitate breeding
and conservation programmes and provide new tools in the fight against
plant and animal diseases. It is clear from the survey of current and
emerging applications of biotechnology in this report that
biotechnology encompasses far more than genetic engineering. But it is
the ability to move genes between unrelated species that gives genetic
engineering its enormous power and elicits such profound concern. FAO
recognizes the need for a balanced and comprehensive approach to
biotechnological development, taking into consideration the
opportunities and risks.
Biotechnology
offers opportunities to increase the availability and variety of food,
increasing overall agricultural productivity while reducing seasonal
variations in food supplies. Through the introduction of pest-resistant
and stress-tolerant crops, biotechnology could lower the risk of crop
failure under difficult biological and climatic conditions.
Furthermore, biotechnology could help reduce environmental damage
caused by toxic agricultural chemicals. Following a first generation of
genetically engineered crops, which aimed primarily at reducing
production constraints and costs, a second generation now targets the
bio-availability of nutrients and the nutritional quality of products.
Examples are found in the production of varieties of rice and canola
that contain appreciable amounts of beta-carotene. This precursor of
vitamin A is in short supply in the diets of many, particularly in the
developing world where it could help to alleviate or reduce chronic
vitamin A deficiencies. Research is under way to raise levels of other
vitamins, minerals and proteins in crops, such as potatoes and cassava.
This
issue of The State of Food and Agriculture reviews the
historical record of agricultural research in promoting economic growth
and food security. The Green Revolution, which lifted millions of
people out of poverty, came about through an international programme of
public-sector agricultural research specifically aimed at creating and
transferring technologies to the developing world as free public goods.
The Gene Revolution, by contrast, is currently being driven primarily
by the private sector, which naturally focuses on developing products
for large commercial markets. This raises serious questions about the
type of research that is being performed and the likelihood that the
poor will benefit.
2002:
Agriculture and global
public goods ten years after the Earth Summit
According
to FAO's latest estimate, there were 815 million undernourished people
in the world in 1997-99: 777 million in the developing countries, 27
million in the countries in transition and 11 million in the developed
market economies.
More than half of the undernourished people (61 percent) are found in
Asia, while sub-Saharan Africa accounts for almost a quarter (24
percent).
In terms of the percentage of undernourished people in the total
population, the highest incidence is found in sub-Saharan Africa, where
it was estimated that one-third of the population (34 percent) were
undernourished in 1997-99. Sub-Saharan Africa is followed by Asia and
the Pacific, where 16 percent of the population are undernourished.
Significant progress has been made over the last two decades: the
incidence of undernourishment in the developing countries has decreased
from 29 percent in 1979-81 to 17 percent in 1997-99.
However, progress has been very uneven. In Asia and the Pacific, the
percentage has been halved since 1979-81. In sub-Saharan Africa, by
contrast, the incidence of undernourishment has declined only
marginally over the same period. Considering the rapid population
growth in this region, this means that the total number of
undernourished people in sub-Saharan Africa has increased
significantly. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the incidence of
undernourishment is lower than in Asia, but progress over the last two
decades has been slower. The Near East and North Africa region has the
lowest incidence of undernourishment, but has seen no reduction over
the last two decades.
At the World Food Summit in 1996, heads of state and government made a
commitment to cut by half the number of undernourished people
in developing countries by 2015 (with 1990-92 as the benchmark period).
Since the benchmark period, the number of undernourished people has
declined by a total of 39 million, corresponding to an average annual
decline of 6 million. To achieve the World Food Summit goal, the number
of undernourished people would have to decrease by an annual rate of 22
million for the remaining period - well above the current level of
performance.
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| 2001 |
Economic impacts of transboundary plant pests and
animal diseases
Pests
and diseases have threatened farmers since farming began. The damage
they cause can be economic (through lost output, income and investment)
as well as psychological (manifested in shock and panic). Combating
pests and diseases is a necessity for farmers and, as a rule, decisions
regarding control are made by the individual farmer. However, the
presence of a pest or disease on one farm poses a threat to adjacent
farms and sometimes even to distant localities. As such, pests and
diseases imply negative impacts on third parties and call for an
additional response, either from affected parties or a public agency.
Infrastructure and services to prevent and combat pests and diseases
are a public good that can be provided more efficiently by governments
than by individual farmers. Yet, the most effective form of government
intervention depends on the pest or disease in question. Experience has
often shown that government provision of pest and disease control
services can create a dependency among farmers and discourage their
adoption of integrated pest management approaches that enable them to
address the problems themselves. In such circumstances, government
provision of knowledge, science and information may be the best and
most sustainable way of serving the farming community in the long term.
The justification for government control intervention is stronger for
transboundary pests and diseases than for those that only occur
locally. Furthermore, in some countries the loss of food as a result of
pests and diseases may threaten food security or rural livelihoods,
making intervention politically unavoidable.
Plant pests and animal diseases pose the greatest immediate threat when
they move as plagues or when they are introduced for the first time
into ecologically favourable conditions where there are few natural
factors to limit their spread and people do not have experience in
managing them. Such occurrences often have the most evident economic
impact and, in many cases, affect marginalized people most severely.
The spread of emergent diseases and invasive species has increased
dramatically in recent years. At the same time, numerous developments -
such as the rapidly increasing transboundary movements of goods and
people, trade liberalization, increasing concerns about food safety and
the environment - have heightened the need for international
cooperation in controlling and managing transboundary pests and
diseases.
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 |
| 2000 |
World food and agriculture: lessons from the past 50
years
This
review covers changes in the world food, agricultural and food security
situation over the past half-century, with a view to deriving policy
messages for the years to come.
Fifty years of world food and agriculture make up a canvas that can
only be painted with a broad brush. It is not only a long period but
also an extraordinarily eventful one - indeed, no other 50-year period
in history has seen such wide-ranging and rapid changes in humanity.
These changes have not left agriculture untouched. Food and
agricultural techniques and systems have undergone major
transformations, as have agricultural and rural societies. Different
food security situations have also evolved across regions, countries
and groups of people. Progress has been spectacular in some areas,
disappointing in others. The world today appears overall to be a rich
and peaceful place compared with what it was 50 years ago. Yet,
millions of people, even in rich societies, are still bowed down by the
suffering imposed on them by hunger and related diseases. Such
contrasts are certainly not specific to the contemporary world, but
advances in technology and resources have made hunger more avoidable
and, therefore, more intolerable today.
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|
| 1998 |
Rural
non-farm income in developing countries
The
traditional image of farm households in developing countries has been
that they focus almost exclusively on farming and undertake little
rural non-farm (RNF) activity. This image persists and is
widespread even today. Policy debate still tends to equate farm income
with rural incomes, and rural/urban relations with farm/non-farm
relations. Industry Ministries have thus focused on urban industry and
Ministries of Agriculture on farming, and there has been a tendency
even among agriculturists and those interested in rural development to
neglect the RNF sector.
Nevertheless, there is mounting evidence that RNF income (i.e. income
derived in this sector from wage-paying activities and self-employment
in commerce, manufacturing and other services) is an important resource
for farm and other rural households, including the landless poor as
well as rural town residents. Although this source accounts for only
part of total off-farm income (which also includes farm wages and
migration earnings), this chapter focuses on RNF income so as to enable
a closer examination of what can be done within rural areas themselves
to increase overall economic activity and employment.
There are several reasons why the promotion of RNF activity can
be of great interest to developing country policy-makers. First, the
evidence shows that RNF income is an important factor in household
economies and therefore also in food security, since it allows greater
access to food. This source of income may also prevent rapid or
excessive urbanization as well as natural resource degradation through
overexploitation.
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|
|
| 1997 |
The agroprocessing industry and economic development
Agriculture and industry have traditionally been viewed as two separate
sectors both in terms of their characteristics and their role in
economic growth. Agriculture has been considered the hallmark of the
first stage of development, while the degree of industrialization has
been taken to be the most relevant indicator of a country’s progress
along the development path. Moreover, the proper strategy for growth
has often been conceived as one of a more or less gradual shift from
agriculture to industry, with the onus on agriculture to finance the
shift in the first stage.
This view, however, no longer appears to be appropriate. On the one
hand, the role of agriculture in the process of development has been
reappraised and revalued from the point of view of its contribution to
industrialization and its importance for harmonious development and
political and economic stability. On the other hand, agriculture itself
has become a form of industry, as technology, vertical integration,
marketing and consumer preferences have evolved along lines that
closely follow the profile of comparable industrial sectors, often of
notable complexity and richness of variety and scope. This has meant
that the deployment of resources in agriculture has become increasingly
responsive to market forces and increasingly integrated in the network
of industrial interdependencies. Agricultural products are shaped by
technologies of growing complexity, and they incorporate the results of
major research and development efforts as well as increasingly
sophisticated individual and collective preferences regarding
nutrition, health and the environment. While one can still distinguish
the phase of production of raw materials from the processing and
transformation phase, often this distinction is blurred by the
complexity of technology and the extent of vertical integration: the
industrialization of agriculture and development of agroprocessing
industries is thus a joint process which is generating an entirely new
type of industrial sector.
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|
|
| 1996 |
Food security: some macroeconomic
dimensions
Food
security has been defined as the access for all people at all times to
enough food for an active, healthy life. The three key ideas underlying
this definition are: the adequacy of food availability (effective
supply); the adequacy of food access, i.e. the ability of the
individual to acquire sufficient food (effective demand); and the
reliablity of both. Food insecurity can, therefore, be a failure of
availability, access, reliability or some combination of these factors.
Inherent in this modern concept of food security is an understanding of
food producers and consumers as economic agents. Food availability is
the supply of food, which depends, inter alia, on relative
input and output prices as well as on the technological production
possibilities. Food access is concerned with the demand for food, which
is a function of several variables: the price of the food item in
question; the prices of complementary and substitutable items; income;
demographic variables; and tastes or preferences.4
According to Barraclough, to ensure food security, a food system should
be characterized by:
- the capacity to produce, store and import
sufficient food to meet basic needs for all population groups;
- maximum autonomy and self-determination
(without implying self-sufficiency), which reduces vulnerability to
international market fluctuations and political pressures;
- reliability, such that seasonal, cyclical
and other variations in access to food are minimal;
- sustainability, such that the ecological
system is protected and improved over time;
- equity, meaning, as a minimum, dependable
access to adequate food for all social groups.5
It is
worth adding explicitly that a secure food system must be able to
deliver inputs and outputs (both those produced and consumed
domestically and those traded internationally) where and when they are
required.
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|
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| 1995 |
Agricultural trade: entering a new era?
- Full Report
The
expansion of agricultural trade has helped provide greater quantity,
wider variety and better quality food to increasing numbers of people
at lower prices. Agricultural trade is also a generator of income and
welfare for the millions of people who are directly or indirectly
involved in it. At the national level, for many countries it is a major
source of the foreign exchange that is necessary to finance imports and
development; while for many others domestic food security is closely
related to the country's capacity to finance food imports.
As with any activity that involves buyers and sellers, however,
agricultural trade - perhaps more than any other trade tends to be a
source of conflicts of interest and international confrontation. One
reason for this is that agricultural policies are frequently influenced
by the interests of particular political constituencies within a
country rather than by national, international or global interests.
Related reasons are: the emergence and growth of widespread distortions
in world agricultural markets; the food-security role of agricultural
trade, which confers upon it a special political, socio-economic and
strategic dimension; and, more recently, differing perceptions of the
role of agricultural trade in environmental matters of transnational or
global i merest.
Agricultural trade policy has long reflected the widely held belief
that, because of its importance and vulnerability, the agricultural
sector could not be exposed to the full rigours of international
competition without incurring unacceptable political, social and
economic consequences. This view has led to high and widespread
protection of the sector, which has been a cause of depressed and
unstable agricultural commodity markets, in their turn, leading to
further pressures for protection. In recent years, however, many
developing countries have unilaterally taken steps towards the
liberalization of overall and agricultural markets. Most of these steps
have involved the development of structural adjustment programmes and
regional cooperation schemes. In the former centrally planned
economies, the systemic reforms underway have also led to greater
external openness and this process, in particular the increasingly
important role in international trade that China is likely to play, has
far-reaching implications worldwide. On the other hand, for a number of
developed countries, including such major traders as the United States
and the EC, agricultural policy reform induced by domestic or
international pressure has led to some reduction in trade distortions
but not to significant trade liberalization as yet.
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|
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| 1994 |
Part III: Forest
development and policy dilemmas - Full
Report |
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| 1993 |
Part III: Water policies and agriculture - Full report |
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| The World Bank: agriculture and rural development |
The state of food insecurity
in the world reports on global and national efforts to reach
the goal set by the 1996 World
Food Summit: to reduce by half the number of undernourished people
in the world by the year 2015.
FAO has the mandate to monitor progress in hunger reduction based on
accurate, reliable and timely methods that measure the prevalence of
hunger, food insecurity and vulnerability and that also illustrate
changes over time.
----
Full SOFI
report 2003
SOFI
2003 summary in pdf (95 K)
News Story (1)
---
Full SOFI
report 2002
SOFI
2002 summary in pdf (159 K)
News Stories (1)
(2)
International Year of the
Mountains
---
Full SOFI
report 2001
Press release
---
Full
SOFI report 2000
Full
SOFI report 2000 in pdf (1 MB)
SOFI
2000 summary in pdf (376 K)
FAO
Focus on SOFI
News and
Highlights
Press
release
---
Full
SOFI report 1999 in pdf (1 MB)
SOFI
1999 summary in pdf (328 K)
FAO Focus on
SOFI 1999
Press
release
|
| |
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From UNCTAD
Least Developed Countries Report 1997
Agricultural
Development and Policy Reforms in LDCs
UNCTAD´s annual report on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) is the
most comprehensive, and authoritative, source of socio-economic
analysis and data on the world s 48 most impoverished nations.
This year, it raises the following important questions:
Why, at a time of record resource flows to developing countries, is the
LDC s share of external finance falling?
Why, twenty years after the Green Revolution, have many LDCs failed to
improve their agricultural productivity?
Why, at a time of unparalleled prosperity, are the populations of
nearly half the LDCs getting less to eat than ten years ago?
What can the international community do to help those LDCs that have
experienced serious civil strife for over a decade, and whose economies
are in regress?
|
|
From The
World Bank Group archives
Public
and Private Roles in Agricultural Development
Proceedings
if the Twelfth Agricultural Symposium
J. R. Anderson and C. de Haan, editors - 1992
File Copy 11505
From the Foreword: The tradition of the Annual Agricultural Symposium
is now well established...Our deliberations got off to a spirited start
with the Opening Address of Mr. Mahbub ul Haq, formerly of the World
Bank and of many senior positions in Pakistan and, most recently, of
UNDP. His address "The Myth of Friendly Markets" led to a vigorous
debate with participation by many of the very large audience of Bank
staff.
The theme of this year's Symposium - Public and Private Roles in
Agricultural Development- is one that is to the fore of debate on many
aspects of Bank operations...the contributions ranged accross roles in
marketing, credit, research, extension, input supply, seeds, veterinary
services, and grassroots development initiatives.
Table of contents:
Opening
Session:
Opening Statement, by Lewis Preston
The Myth of the Friendly Markets, by Mahbub ul Haq
Governments
and the handling of purchased ibputs and marketed outputs
The art of privatizing after decades of planning,
by Robert L. Roos
How to privatize a parastatal, by Wilfred Candler
Rural finance in developing countries, by Jacob
Yaron
New
approaches to supporting agricultural research and Extension
An initiative involving the private sector in meat and
livestock research, by Nigel H. Monteith
The United Kingdom experience in the privatization of
extension, by Paul Ingram
Agricultural
delivery systems
From agricultural extension to rural information
management, by Willem Zijp
Energizing the communication component in extension: a
case for new pilot projects, by Bella Mody
New technologies in soil fertility maintenance private
sector contributions, by Dennis H. Parish
Public and private sector roles in the supply of
veterinary services, by Cornelis de Haan and Dina L. Umali
Fostering a Fledging Seed Industry, by Alexander
Grobman
The development and marketing of new material from
biotechnology in the commercial sector, by Sue Sundstrom
Long-term
issues affecting the environment in which public and private roles are
played out
The global supply of agricultural land, by Pierre
Crosson
Land use planning and productive capacity assessment,
by Wim Sombroek
Update on aquaculture: small-scale freshwater fish
culture in South Asia, by Darrell L. Deppert
Nutritional considerations in World Bank lending for
economic adjustment, by Harold Alderman
Nongovernmental
organizations
Private voluntary initiatives: enhancing the public
sector's capacity to respond to nongovernmental organizations needs,
by Anthony Bebbington and John Farrington
Nongovernmental organization alternatives and fresh
initiatives in extension: the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme
experience, by Shoaib Sultan Khan
Closing
session
Closing remarks, by Michel Petit
|
| Mexico
- Agricultural Development and Rural Poverty Project Vol. 1
(English)(1997) |
| Mexico
- Protected Areas Program Restructuring Project Vol. 1 (English)(1997) |
| Mexico
- Rural Finance Technical Assistance and Pilot Project Vol. 1
(English)(1996) |
| Mexico
- Third Integrated Rural Development (PIDER III) Project Vol. 1
(English)(1990) |
| Mexico
- Second Integrated Rural Development (PIDER II) Project Vol. 1
(English)(1986) |
|
Mexico - Integrated Rural Development (PIDER)
Project Vol. 1 (English)(1983) |
|
Mexico - Third Integrated Rural Development
(PIDER III) Project Vol. 1 (English)(1981) |
|
Mexico - Third Integrated Rural Development
(PIDER III) Project Vol. 1 (English)(1981) |
|
Mexico - Second Integrated Rural Development
(PIDER II) Project Vol. 1 (English)(1977) |
| Mexico
- Second Integrated Rural Development (PIDER II) Project Vol. 1
(English)(1977) |
| ... |
| Centro
de Documentación de Desarrollo Rural |
| El estado mundial
de la agricultura y la alimentación 2000 (FAO website) |
| Cumbre
Mundial sobre la Alimentación.-1996 |
| Organización
de las Naciones Unidas para la agricultura y la alimentación |
| |
| Inter-Réseaux.
Développement Rural |
| La situation
mondiale de l'alimentation et de l'agriculture 2000 (FAO website) |
| Sommet mondial de
l'alimentation.-November 2001 |
| Sommet
mondial de l'alimentation.-1996 |
| Organisation
de Nations Unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
From World Development Indicators:
Statistics on world agriculture
...crops, imports, exports, trade, fertilizers, pollution, value added,
etc...
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