Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

The 2012 edition of The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA 2012) - Investing in Agriculture for a better future was just released.

Investing in agriculture is essential for reducing hunger and promoting sustainable agricultural production. Those parts of the world where investments in agriculture have stagnated are the epicentres of poverty and hunger today. Demand growth over the coming decades will place increasing pressure on the natural resource base. Eradicating hunger sustainably will require a significant increase in agricultural investments, and an improvement in their effectiveness.

Farmers are the largest investors in developing country agriculture and must be central to any strategy for increasing investment in the sector. If they are to invest more in agriculture they need economic incentives and an enabling environment. Governments have a special responsibility to help smallholders overcome the constraints they face. Government investment in agriculture is crucial for providing an enabling environment for private investments in the sector.

Trends and impacts of foreign investment in developing country agriculture - Evidence from case studies

Large-scale international investments in developing country agriculture, especially acquisitions of agricultural land, continue to raise international concern. Certainly, complex and controversial issues – economic, political, institutional, legal and ethical – are raised in relation to food security, poverty reduction, rural development, technology and access to land and water resources. Yet at the same time, some developing countries are making strenuous efforts to attract foreign investment into their agricultural sectors. They see an important role for such investments in filling the gap left by dwindling official development assistance and the limitations of their own domestic budgetary resources, creating employment and incomes and promoting technology transfer. More investment is certainly needed – more than US$80 billion per year according to FAO analysis. But can foreign direct investment be compatible with the needs of local stakeholders as well as those of the international investor? And can these investments yield more general development benefits?