FAO’s Responsible Business Conduct Quarterly Bulletin (RBC-Q) shares events and resources on FAO’s activities on Responsible Global Value Chains and news from around the world related to business, risk and development in the agricultural sector. It is prepared by FAO’s Markets and Trade Division (EST). This issue of the bulletin covers the period July–September 2022.

FAO assesses that globally 45 countries, including 33 in Africa, nine in Asia, two in Latin America and the Caribbean and one in Europe, are in need of external assistance for food. In East Africa, engendered by multi-season droughts, the food insecurity situation is grave and unless humanitarian assistance is scaled up, famine is expected in parts of Somalia. Globally, multi-year high inflation rates, amid challenging macroeconomic environments, are aggravating...

Heavy monsoon rains and subsequent flooding between mid-June and end-August 2022 disrupted the livelihoods of about 33 million people and destroyed agricultural land, crops, livestock assets, critical agricultural infrastructure and households’ food reserves. The floods caused significant losses to the 2022 “Kharif” food and cash crops, including rice, maize, cotton, sugarcane, vegetables and orchards, with the bulk of the damage concentrated in Sindh Province. Prices of wheat, the country’s main...

Famine is expected to occur in Bay Region between October and December 2022, if humanitarian assistance is not urgently scaled up. About 6.7 million people, over 40 percent of the total population, are projected to face severe acute food insecurity, including over 300 000 people in IPC Phase 5 (Catastrophe). The dire food insecurity situation is the consequence of a prolonged drought that began in late 2020, compounded by the...

The Market and Policy Analysis of Raw Materials, Horticulture and Tropical Products Team (RAMHOT), provides economic data and analysis on major agricultural raw materials and tropical products, including hard fibres (abaca, coir and sisal), jute, kenaf and allied fibres. The tables contained in this document bring together governments’ replies to the latest questionnaires, supplemented by other data available to the Secretariat at 31 December 2021.

Reduced supplies and soaring prices of most agricultural inputs raise concerns about production of the 2022 main “wet” season crops, including paddy, the country’s main food staple. Prices of livestock inputs surged since April 2022, resulting in distress sales of animals by farmers. Prices of most food items increased since the beginning of 2022 and reached record or near‑record highs in July 2022. Acute food insecurity deteriorated since early 2022, with...

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warn that acute food insecurity is likely to deteriorate further in 19 countries or situations – called hunger hotspots – during the outlook period from October 2022 to January 2023.

International wheat prices continued to ease in August, influenced by increased availability from ongoing harvests and the resumption of exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. By contrast, maize prices firmed mostly on strong demand for supplies from Argentina and Brazil amidst a tighter global supply outlook and pressure from energy markets. World rice prices held steady in August, as slight declines in quotations of the most widely traded “Indica” varieties...

This report describes full-year results on developments in global major tropical fruits trade in 2021 and represents an update to the Major Tropical Fruits Market Preliminary Results 2021.