Trade, Food Security and Sustainable Development| Markets and Trade | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

The 2030 Agenda recognizes that trade is key to addressing food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture. International agrifood trade can help balance food deficits and surpluses across countries, improve availability of diverse foods, and contribute to price stability. Yet, greater trade openness may also pose challenges, especially for small-scale agrifood value chain actors. FAO supports its Members by providing evidence and strengthening capacities in trade and market-related policies and inclusive agricultural systems that contribute to the achievement of Zero Hunger (SDG 2). Other areas of support include climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts.

Key messages

	Trade policy has a critical role to play in eradicating global hunger by 2030, but trade alone cannot address all of the socioeconomic and political challenges that influence food security and nutrition.
	Sound policies for food security and nutrition balance a reliance on trade with domestic production to ensure stable food availability and accessibility. At the same time, policies should raise income levels for the rural poor and improve nutritional value in food chains.
	FAO emphasizes evidence-based decision-making to ensure that trade and trade policies contribute to the achievement of food security and nutrition.

Publications

Alliances for Action: Guide for export promotion

02/09/2022

This guide presents a step-by-step approach to assist development practitioners, national authorities and the private sector in facilitating the development of export promotion programs through building multi-stakeholder value chain (VC) alliances to compete in international markets. The guide draws from the Alliances for Action (A4A) approach, which was developed by the International Trade Centre (ITC). A4A has been proven to be effective in mobilizing VC and supporting participants in an ecosystem around a shared purpose to transform VC performance in terms of competitiveness, value addition, and export growth, among other targets. This helps practitioners and value chain stakeholders understand the critical steps and processes in the establishment of successful alliances, which lead to product upgrading, the establishment of new market outlets, and the promotion of sustainable production and consumption.

Public food stockholding

21/10/2021

The paper investigates the basics of public stockholding, exploring the objectives of such programmes, the policy instruments used to achieve them, and their possible market impacts. It also synthesizes country experiences in implementing public stockholding programmes in different regions and presents the evolution of administered and international prices over the last decade. Finally, the paper highlights the main elements of the WTO negotiations on public stockholding for food security, and some of the issues that need to be resolved to help achieve consensus in this area.

The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2020

31/10/2020

The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2020 (SOCO 2020) aims to discuss policies and mechanisms that promote sustainable outcomes – economic, social and environmental – in agricultural and food markets, both global and domestic. The analysis is organized along the trends and challenges that lie at the heart of global discussions on trade and development.