Innovation for sustainable agricultural intensification (SAI) is challenging. Changing agricultural systems at scale normally means working with partners at different levels to make changes in policies and social institutions, along with technical practices. This study extracts lessons for practitioners and investors in innovation in SAI, based on concrete examples, to guide future investment.

Recent sessions of FAO Governing Bodies have put a strong focus on science, technology and innovation and Members are increasingly requesting FAO’s support to harness science and innovation. The FAO Science and Innovation Strategy (the Strategy) was adopted by the FAO Council at its 170th Session following an inclusive and transparent consultative process, with the participation of all Members through formal sessions of Governing Bodies (including the Regional Conferences in 2022), as well as two informal consultations and informal meetings with Regional Groups.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) financed the second Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resource Management Project (CHARMP2), in areas where poverty is most severe among indigenous peoples in the highlands of the Cordillera Region in northern Philippines. The aim is to reduce poverty and improve the livelihoods of indigenous peoples living in farming communities in the mountainous project area. The indigenous peoples consist of many tribes whose main economic activity is agriculture.

Policy briefs are an effective tool to communicate policy messages using evidence. Thus, the Department of Agriculture Extension and Cooperatives (DAEC) and the Department of Planning and Cooperation (DOPC) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) in Lao PDR organized a multi-stakeholder policy dialogue process with support from FAO’s TAP-AIS project to spur discussion and gather evidence for this policy brief. Stakeholders involved in the policy dialogue process included representatives from the private sector, farmers organizations, academia, NGOs and the government.

If the world is to transition towards agrifood systems that are more sustainable and equitable, small-scale production systems will be key to progress. Large parts of the world depend on small-scale systems for maintaining food security and nutrition (Lowder, Sánchez and Bertini, 2021; Herrero et al., 2017). Despite this centrality, neither small-scale production systems nor small-scale producers have received due recognition under predominant agrifood systems paradigms.

This report aims at inspiring strategic thinking and actions to transform agrifood systems towards a sustainable, resilient and inclusive future, by building on both previous reports in the same series as well as on a comprehensive corporate strategic foresight exercise that also nurtured FAO Strategic Framework 2022–31. It analyses major drivers of agrifood systems and explores how their trends could determine alternative futures of agrifood, socioeconomic and environmental systems.

The purpose of this report is to increase understanding of the nature of the challenges that agriculture and food systems are facing now and will face into the 21st century. Its analysis of 15 global trends provides insights into what is at stake and what needs to be done. Most of the trends are strongly interdependent and, combined, inform a set of 10 challenges to achieving food security and nutrition for all and making agriculture sustainable. ‘Business-as-usual’ is not an option.

This report explores three different scenarios for the future of food and agriculture, based on alternative trends for key drivers, such as income growth and distribution, population growth, technical progress in agriculture, and climate change. Building on the report The future of food and agriculture – Trends and challenges, this publication provides scenario-based quantitative projections to 2050 for food and agriculture.