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This publication provides an in-depth analysis of the applications of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies in the agriculture sector. It aims to facilitate a better understanding of the opportunities and benefits of blockchain in agriculture, as well as the technical and institutional barriers to its adoption. The paper analyses how blockchain and smart contracts can increase efficiency, transparency and traceability in agricultural supply chains and improve rural development interventions; as well as be an impetus to achieve the SDGs. Blockchain-based technologies have the potential to promote more sustainable agriculture supply chains, better facilitate trade and provide a more inclusive trading [...]

Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) and smart contracts provide a unique opportunity to bring greater efficiency, transparency and traceability to the exchange of value and information in the agriculture sector. By utilising digital records, cryptography and the disintermediation of transaction processing and data storage, DLTs can improve both agricultural supply chains and rural development interventions in a number of ways. The technology has the potential to simplify and integrate agricultural supply chains, enhance food safety, facilitate access to trade finance and other types of agricultural financial services, improve market transparency, provide greater legal certainty to land-tenure systems and strengthen accountability for [...]

This Resource framework is intended as a guidance tool for stakeholders involved in programme design, implementation and monitoring of Home-Grown School Feeding Programmes and the related policy and institutional environment, including, inter alia: governments and development partners providing technical and financial assistance, as well as civil society, community based organisations and the private sector. It is a knowledge product that harmonizes the existing approaches and tools, and builds on the wealth of expertise and experience with home grown school feeding models i.e. those designed to provide children in schools with safe, diverse and nutritious food, sourced locally from smallholders, with [...]

The objective of this corporate Framework (the ‘Framework’) is to guide the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in carrying out its mandate in its areas of competence and comparative advantage, i.e. food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture, towards a more deliberate and transformative impact on sustaining peace. Following the April 2016 Security Council and General Assembly resolutions on peacebuilding, the concept “sustaining peace” encompasses activities aimed at preventing the outbreak, escalation, continuation and recurrence of conflict, including addressing root causes and moving towards recovery, reconstruction and development. The United Nations Secretary-General has called on all UN entities to [...]

This report explores three different scenarios for the future of food and agriculture, based on alternative trends for key drivers, including income growth and distribution, population growth, technical progress and climate change. Building on the report The future of food and agriculture – Trends and challenges, this publication forms part of FAO’s efforts to support evidence-based decision-making processes. It provides solid qualitative and quantitative analysis and sheds light on possible strategic options to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of eradicating hunger, improving nutrition and ensuring economic, social and environmental sustainability of food and agricultural systems. Find out more: Report summary FAO Website: Global Perspectives [...]

Latin America and the Caribbean is falling short of the Sustainable Development Goal 1: Ending poverty. After two and a half decades of progress, poverty and extreme rural poverty increased by two percentage points each between 2014 and 2016. By 2017, there were an estimated 59 million poor and 27 million extreme poor in rural areas of the region. During the last 20 years, Latin America and the Caribbean has been at the forefront of global experiences in the reduction of rural poverty. The new regional context implies that the countries of the region must not only protect the progress made [...]

The initiative to develop the Global Strategy to improve agricultural and rural statistics (GSARS) came as a response to address developing countries’ lack of capacity to provide reliable statistical data on food and agriculture and to provide a blueprint for long-term sustainable agricultural statistical systems.

This brief presents the main features of the Migration and Rural Development Handbook, based mainly on the guidance materials developed in the framework of the Rural Youth Mobility Project (RYM). The RYM Project was launched in 2015 in Tunisia and Ethiopia to address the drivers of rural out-migration of youth - such as poverty, food insecurity and unemployment - while at the same time harnessing the development potential of migratory movements. The RYM had a strong capacity building component, as one of the main objectives of the Project was to strengthen governments' capacity to better address migration issues in the context [...]

This Guide promotes a people-centred gender approach towards increasing and improving the provision of goods and services from agriculture, forestry and fisheries in a sustainable manner while reducing rural poverty in different priority areas of FAO’s work. This includes gender equality, territorial development, legal aspects and natural resources management.

The Partnership note aims at providing readers with an overview of the work carried out by the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) – one of the largest organizations of informal workers in the world– in bolstering financial inclusion for poor women, both in India (where SEWA is based) and abroad. The four-decade experience that SEWA can boast in providing financial services to poor women around the world - together with the unique financial innovations that the organization has developed through trial-and-error for its members - make SEWA an extremely interesting case study within the domain of development finance.