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This publication contributes directly to SO1 and under Regional Initiative on Zero Hunger Challenge. Eradication of hunger and malnutrition is a major challenge in Asia. Dietary and production diversity are recognized factors in strategies to improve food security and nutrition. Currently, agriculture has an over-reliance on a handful of major staple crops. Agrobiodiversity offers huge potentials in addressing malnutrition and agricultural sustainability. Future Smart Food (FSF), often referred to as Neglected and Underutilized Species (NUS), are rich in Asia. They represent a promising abundance of food resources and constitute the bedrock of the food system diversity. FSF have enormous benefits [...]

This brochure presents FAO ’s work on agricultural innovation. FAO advocates a shift from interventions focusing on single components of agricultural innovation towards a system-approach aimed at strengthening institutions and stakeholders’ networks that better respond to the needs of smallholder farmers. Agricultural innovation is the process whereby individuals or organizations bring new or existing products, processes or ways of organization into use for the first time in a specific context in order to increase effectiveness, competitiveness, resilience to shocks or environmental sustainability and thereby contribute to food security and nutrition, economic development or sustainable natural resource management. Innovation is central to [...]

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 course presents strategies to strengthen the impact of child labour reduction and youth employment policies and programmes by considering the two issues together. First, it builds an understanding of the differences as well as linkages between child labour and youth employment. Second, it highlights concrete measures to improve policy and programme coherence and support for young people to access decent opportunities in agriculture.

The platform presents country-level indicators and analyses of Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP). They inform different aspects of food and agricultural policies, including analysis of agricultural public expenditure, analysis of price incentives for agricultural commodities, and policy coherence assessment.

This guidance note was developed to support development and humanitarian practitioners in carrying out a gender-sensitive vulnerability assessment, in order to identify and address the main sources of vulnerability of men and women in the agriculture sector. The note describes what are the main constraints that male and female farmers face in the agriculture sector, with a focus on climate change. It also provides an overview of available sources and methodologies to collect and analyze sex-disaggregated data. The specific aspects of climate change and targeted outcomes for men and women can vary widely across diverse areas, so this note discusses [...]

CountrySTAT is a web-based information system for food and agriculture statistics at regional, national and subnational levels. The objective of CountrySTAT is to improve access to food and agricultural statistics. It supports data analysis and evidence-based decision making. It also facilitates informed policy-making and monitoring with the goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. The system implements methods and standards to support institutions in data management and ensures long-term sustainability by developing capacity of regional and national experts.

To promote consistency and comparability of information at the world level, FAO statistics provides national statistical offices with internationally recognized definitions, concepts and classifications. Use this tool to access information on the FAOSTAT Commodity List (FCL). Definitions and correspondences to international standards can be searched either by item code or keyword.

FAOSTAT offers free and easy access to the data of 245 countries and 35 regional areas from 1961 to today. 

This course informs the treatment of agriculture in several World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements and regional trade agreements (RTAs). It supports policy makers to design and implement effective agricultural development and food security strategies.