At high level dialogue, Stakeholders Rally Support for Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture (National Update/Punch)

This article published by National Update (Nigeria) wrote about a recent high-level dialogue on the CGIAR HER+ initiative in Abuja held on October 9, 2024, that aimed to address barriers women face in Nigeria’s agrifood sector.

The post At high level dialogue, Stakeholders Rally Support for Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture (National Update/Punch) appeared first on IFPRI.

The manufacturers of HVAC products for indoor farming say their equipment can help optimize growers’ crop yields.

Many thanks to the men and women that produce and protect America's food supply!

Room 21, Parliament Buildings

Room 30, Parliament Buildings

Room 30, Parliament Buildings

Room 30, Parliament Buildings

Room 21, Parliament Buildings

[Nile Post] The International University of East Africa (IUEA) has announced that starting January next year, it will be teaching robotics and climate smart agriculture as some of its new programs.

"With Low-code, no-code it's no different than your standard traditional coding. You still have the ability to scan the code, said Jerry Hingtgen.

The post What’s behind a software development strategy at the Agriculture Department first appeared on Federal News Network.

I don't realize it until I'm standing at the base of the steps of the United Brethren Church in Elberton, but I've made the hourlong drive from Spokane to the Whitman County ghost town on a Sunday…

What does sustainable agriculture mean? 24 May 2022 — 5:30PM TO 6:30PM Anonymous (not verified) 11 May 2022 Chatham House and Online

Experts compare and contrast visions of ‘sustainable’ agriculture.

There is growing and unprecedented recognition of the adverse effects of food systems on global warming, air and water pollution, biodiversity, soil, and managing the emergence and spread of infectious diseases. At the same time, concern is rising over the role of climate change itself in compromising food security, supply-chain resilience and food price spikes.

Against this backdrop, the need for agriculture to become more ‘sustainable’ is clear. However, there is little consensus over what that means in practice. To address this, Chatham House is launching a new research paper comparing and contrasting the two most commonly articulated versions of ‘sustainable agriculture’.

The first focuses on sparing land for nature and increasing the productivity of agricultural land while minimizing environmental impacts. The second involves scaling up nature-friendly farming while emphasizing demand-side changes to reduce the overall pressure on land.

• How can we understand the arguments in support of either version and the assumptions and ideologies which underpin them?

• What are the implications of promoting one version of agriculture over the other

• How can policy transform agriculture and food systems?

• What should civil society support as ‘sustainable’ choices?

Subsidies and Sustainable Agriculture: Mapping the Policy Landscape Research paper sysadmin 10 December 2019

Agricultural subsidies shape production and consumption patterns, with potentially significant effects on poverty, nutrition and other sustainability concerns. This paper maps the different types of support provided by governments to the agricultural sector, and highlights some of the complex political economy dynamics that underpin the relevant policies.

Summary

• Agricultural subsidies, a mainstay of government policy, have a large part in shaping production and consumption patterns, with potentially significant effects as regards poverty, food security, nutrition, and other sustainability concerns such as climate change, land use practices and biodiversity.
• There are multiple types of direct and indirect support provided by governments to various actors in the agricultural sector; and in terms of political economy, there are complex dynamics underpinning the policies that sustain these subsidies.
• Overall, subsidies targeting producers have the most significant effect on production, and the greater trade-distorting effect. These subsidies promote domestic production and discourage imports, leading to overproduction that is largely disposed of on the international market, with the help of export subsidies. This can tend to intensify negative environmental agricultural practices, such as cultivating marginal land, unsustainable types of intensification, or incentivizing excessive pesticide and fertilizer use.
• On the other hand, producer subsidies that are not tied to output of a specific commodity (i.e. delinked) have far fewer distorting impacts and could help to deliver sustainable outcomes. For example, this type of subsidies can require crop diversification or be linked to conservation of permanent grassland.
• Subsidies that enable transfers to consumers, for example through food stamp programmes, also serve to delink production from consumption, can foster healthier diets, can play an important role in delivering food accessibility and security among low-income groups, and can represent one of the less trade-distorting subsidies.
• If subsidies are to be reformed to help promote healthier diets and encourage more sustainable production, it is essential to understand not only the type and amount of support that key countries provide, but also the domestic dynamics that can shape such policies.
• While price support, input subsidies or investment aids remain the central pillars of programmes in large developing countries such as Brazil, China or India, other economies – notably including the EU and Japan – focus on direct payments, support for general services and set-aside schemes, as well as significant border protection. The US, for its part, has tended to focus on subsidized insurance schemes and food programmes for poorer consumers.
• If subsidies are to deliver policy objectives, their design and implementation should delink production from consumption. For example, consumer subsidies designed to deliver nutrition and food security, or payments for environmental services to enable more environmentally friendly production systems, could prove to be the most effective, least trade-distorting means of achieving more sustainable and equitable agricultural production.
• The political economy of food means that the removal of subsidies is often highly sensitive, and tends to be met with significant resistance. However, reform that delinks support from production through a gradual transition process could ultimately prove successful in delivering effective subsidy schemes.
• Effective subsidy schemes must by design be truly result- and performance-based, supported by robust and objective indicators. At the same time, engaging multiple actors along key commodity value chains – including leading importing and exporting countries, traders and transporters – could lead to the development of international, commodity-specific arrangements that are able to deliver effective nutrition and sustainability goals.

Over his decades of farming and ranching, Gabe Brown has noticed a troubling trend: the conventional farming techniques he used were degrading the soil and harming nature. He shares how his family farm turned things around by adopting regenerative agricultural practices — and shows how the wider food system can use these same methods to improve food quality and revitalize the land.

Policy makers should support a broad array of approaches to overhauling global food systems, [...]

Rome, 2 December 2014 – The Ministers of Agriculture of the European Union and of other Mediterranean countries welcomed FAO’s transformational changes implemented in the last two years, and underlined [...]

Berlin- FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva has highlighted some of the most important events on the organization’s 2015 calendar during meetings with agriculture ministers who attended the Global Forum [...]

With rapid soil degradation, fast depletion of groundwater, excessive use of pesticides-fertilizers and extreme weather events all collectively putting stress on farming and forestry, it is time to recognise the [...]

MANUEL PLANELLES, EL PAÍS, Paris- “Agriculture is seen as a threat in the fight against climate change,” Maria Helena Semedo warns. The Deputy Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization [...]

Cancun, Mexico. On [...]

Since the 1990s, rural transformations have helped millions of people exit poverty while remaining in rural areas. This underscores an important fact: revitalising rural economies helps create jobs for rural [...]

The report will be released during Press Conference on Monday, 15 October, at 1:00 PMRome time, in FAO-HQ, Sheikh Zayed Center. The Press Conference will be webcast [...]

On 26 November 2020, 15:00 - 16:30 (CET), FAO will launch the 2020 edition of the State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA).

This year's edition of this flagship publication presents [...]

Understanding and managing disaster risks in global agriculture: Better data for ambitious action