The international organic certification system can be bureaucratic and expensive, and beyond the reach of smallholder ecological farmers who produce for the local market. In many countries, Participatory Guarantee Systems, or PGS, are emerging as an alternative accreditation system. While PGS systems are created locally and differ from one country...

This Regional Initiative uses a complex, multidisciplinary and area-based development approach, tailored to the Europe and Central Asia region. It takes into consideration the region’s heterogeneity and the special challenges it faces. The overall goal is to address the key problems of rural people by empowering smallholders and family farms to...

During the recent U.N. Food Systems Summit Stocktaking Moment, the World Farmers Markets Coalition highlighted the role farmers markets can play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The World Farmers Markets Coalition was launched after the first U.N. Food Systems Summit in 2021. Today, its members, which span 70 countries, point...

On 20 December, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and oriGIn hosted the online event, Third regional consultation on geographical indications in Europe and Central Asia. Some 111 representatives from 34 countries of geographical indications (GIs) groups, national intellectual property offices and the World Intellectual Property...

National Land Policy Study Reports on Senegal, Mali, Togo, Ghana & Cameroon. AFSA is delighted to launch a series of five national reports, within AFSA’s Our Land is Our Life land rights initiative in these countries. These reports aim to: Examine Land Policies and Governance: They seek to understand the national land policies...

Short food chains narrow the gap between producers and consumers, but when food is traded through wholesalers and when supermarkets sell their own brands, active efforts are undertaken to make farmers anonymous. This never really occurred to me until Vera Kuijpers, from the organic farm and farm shop Het Eikelenhof in north-eastern Limburg,...

CARE’s Farmer Field and Business School (FFBS) model focuses on improving small-scale farmers’ productivity, resilience and access to markets. FFBS is a hands-on, learning-by-doing approach through which groups of farmers meet regularly during the course of their value chain production cycle to learn about new agricultural techniques and to experiment...

Illuminating Hidden Harvests: the contributions of small-scale fisheries to sustainable development (hereinafter IHH) is a global study uncovering the contributions and impacts of small-scale fisheries through a multidisciplinary approach to data collection and analysis. The study provides information that quantifies and improves understanding of the crucial role of small-scale fisheries...

Transforming Philippine agriculture remains an urgent need, not just because it is intrinsically connected to food security but also for poverty reduction. The technologies brought by the Green Revolution in the 1960s sparked growth in the sector, but it has remained slow compared to some of its neighboring countries. Although...

In this chapter we argue that industrial food production, distribution and consumption play a central role in perpetuating the present intersecting crises of poor health, biodiversity loss, climate change and inequality. At the centre of our argument lies a contention that multiple rifts (e.g. between humans and nature, urban and...

Several countries across the developing world have designed and implemented agricultural export incentives. However, little is known about the effects of these policies on various aspects of domestic food security. This study utilizes economywide models linked top-down with microsimulation modules to analyze the impacts of increased agricultural export promotion on...

This article explains how quickly we are losing our food diversity and the consequences. Despite the appearance of a wide variety of food options for consumers, global food diversity is rapidly decreasing. The majority of products in supermarkets are made from a small number of ingredients, such as wheat, maize,...

El Gobierno Mexicano emitió y publicó un nuevo decreto presidencial para revocar y no dar más autorizaciones para el uso de maíz genéticamente modificado, específicamente en productos destinados a la alimentación humana, así como el uso del herbicida glifosato, con una transición gradual. Esto ante presiones sobre la primera disposición...

A key fisheries and aquaculture development programme implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has highlighted significant potential to boost these sectors in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Tanzania, Guyana and the Marshall Islands, making them more self-sufficient, creating jobs and preserving biological stock levels.The countries are...

The International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA) 2022 was a unique opportunity for collaboration, both large and small, to focus on the particular needs of small-scale fisheries and aquaculture in Africa. The challenges and solutions related artisanal fisheries and aquaculture in Africa were raised throughout the International Year, particularly...

The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) together with the Regalo ng Kilit Foundation, Inc. convened the First International Conference on School-Plus-Home Garden cum Biodiversity Enhancement Enterprise (SHGBEE1) with the theme, “Restoring Biodiversity, Regenerating Agriculture, and Building Businesses.” Held on 8-12 November 2022 at...

Local varieties often cope better with drought and other stresses, and outperform modern varieties when grown under ecological conditions. Collect traditional varieties by visiting seed savers in their homes, or while attending seed festivals and farmer training events. Seed savers and seed producers select the varieties they like most. These...

Funded by the Government of South Korea, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) implemented the project “Enhancing the Resilience of Vulnerable Refugee Communities through Cash-for-Work in Anjar” in 2019 and 2020, in collaboration with the Ministry of the Agriculture, two partner NGOs, Lebanon Reforestation Initiative (LRI),...

The outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 was a challenge for any practitioner intent on engaging in authentic dialogue for people-centered, place-based transformative praxis with the most marginalized in society–be they in Europe or the Majority World. The pandemic called on us to explore new and creative methodological approaches, to...

The integrated assessment of agricultural value chains through economic, social and environmental analyses is aimed at providing the necessary and sufficient information to guide or support investment decisions in the context of sustainable development. These assessments are based on data collection and analyses of the organisation of these value chains,...