Sustainable food systems are fundamental to ensuring that future generations are food secure and eat healthy diets. To transition towards sustainability, many food system activities must be reconstructed, and myriad actors around the world are starting to act locally. While some changes are easier than others, knowing how to navigate through them to promote sustainable consumption and production practices requires complex skill sets.
Les systèmes alimentaires durables sont essentiels pour assurer la sécurité alimentaire et une alimentation saine pour les générations futures. Pour faire la transition vers la durabilité, de nombreuses activités du système alimentaire doivent se transformer, et une myriade d’acteurs à travers le monde doivent agir localement. Certains changements sont plus faciles à mettre en place que d’autres, mais savoir comment naviguer à travers ces changements pour promouvoir des modes de consommation et de production durables exige un ensemble de compétences complexes.
Los sistemas alimentarios sostenibles son fundamentales para garantizar que las generaciones actuales y futuras tengan seguridad alimentaria y puedan llevar una dieta saludable. Para hacer la transición hacia la sostenibilidad, es necesario reconstruir muchas actividades del sistema alimentario, y un sinnúmero de actores en todo el mundo están empezando a actuar localmente. Si bien algunos cambios son más fáciles que otros, saber cómo navegar a través de ellos para promover prácticas de consumo y producción sostenibles requiere un conjunto complejo de aptitudes.
Innovations in the agri-food sector are needed to create a sustainable food supply. Sustainable food supply requires unexpectedly that densely populated regions remain food producers. A Dutch innovation program has aimed at showing the way forward through creating a number of practice and scientific projects. Generic lessons from the scientific projects in this program are likely to be of interest to agricultural innovation in other densely populated regions in the world.
Given the search for new solutions to better prepare cities for the future, in recent years, urban agriculture (UA) has gained in relevance. Within the context of UA, innovative organizational and technical approaches are generated and tested. They can be understood as novelties that begin a potential innovation process. This empirical study is based on 17 qualitative interviews in the U.S. (NYC; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Chicago, IL, USA).
The study examines whether the goal of food security for the population of Sverdlovskaya oblast, one of the mostly industrial northern region in Russia, aiming agricultural productivity improvement and rural poverty reduction, could be achieved by the regional authorities within post-soviet type of agricultural policy. Results show that, the current trends of agricultural production and rural social development in Sverdlovskaya oblast are degrading.
African agriculture is currently at a crossroads, at which persistent food shortages are compounded by threats from climate change. But, as this book argues, Africa can feed itself in a generation and help contribute to global food security. To achieve this Africa has to define agriculture as a force in economic growth by: advancing scientific and technological research; investing in infrastructure; fostering higher technical training; and creating regional markets.
This book represents the proceedings of the FAO international technical conference dedicated to Agricultural Biotechnologies in Developing Countries (ABDC-10) that took place in Guadalajara, Mexico on 1-4 March 2010. A major objective of the conference was to take stock of the application of biotechnologies across the different food and agricultural sectors in developing countries, in order to learn from the past and to identify options for the future to face the challenges of food insecurity, climate change and natural resource degradation.
PAEPARD supports/facilitates three aflatoxin-related research consortia: (a) Stemming aflatoxin pre- and post-harvest waste in the groundnut value chain in Malawi and Zambia; (b) Developing strategies to reduce fungal toxins contamination for improved food sufficiency, nutrition and incomes along the maize value chain in the arid and semi-arid lands of Eastern Kenya; and (c) Developing feed management protocols for dairy farmers in high rainfall areas in Kenya.
Grants for agricultural innovation are common but grant funds specifically targeted to smallholder farmers remain relatively rare. Nevertheless, they are receiving increasing recognition as a promising venue for agricultural innovation. They stimulate smallholders to experiment with improved practices, to become proactive and to engage with research and extension providers. The systematic review covered three modalities of disbursing these grants to smallholder farmers and their organisations: vouchers, competitive grants and farmer-led innovation support funds.