The State of Food and Agriculture 2014: Innovation in family farming analyses family farms and the role of innovation in ensuring global food security, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. It argues that family farms must be supported to innovate in ways that promote sustainable intensification of production and improvements in rural livelihoods. Innovation is a process through which farmers improve their production and farm management practices.
The Sourcebook is the outcome of joint planning, continued interest in gender and agriculture, and concerted efforts by the World Bank, FAO, and IFAD. The purpose of the Sourcebook is to act as a guide for practitioners and technical staff inaddressing gender issues and integrating gender-responsive actions in the design and implementation of agricultural projects and programs. It speaks not with gender specialists on how to improve their skills but rather reaches out to technical experts to guide them in thinking through how to integrate gender dimensions into their operations.
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.
The private sector’s presence in agricultural advisory services worldwide has been on the increase for over three decades. This trend has also been observed in the Mantaro Valley (Peru), in a context of dairy family farming. The objective of the communication is to analyse the modalities of advisory services privatization and assess the consequences of this privatization for the farmers and their livestock systems. Data were collected through input suppliers, different types of advisers and producers interviews.
In this book, the authors assessed the role of biotechnology innovation for sustainable development in emerging and developing economies. This book compiles studies that each illustrate the potential, demonstrated value and challenges of biotechnology applications for sustainable agricultural innovation and/or industrial development in a national, regional and international context.
Present-day society asks more from agriculture than just the production of food. Agriculture is now required to be concerned with the quality of food, ecosystem services, inclusion of marginalized populations, revitalization of rural territories, energy production, etc. This opening up of the future of agriculture encourages rural actors to experiment with new farming systems, using imagination, creativity and determination to replace dominant models. At the same time, low-cost mass-production systems continue on their way, with promises of a future based on green technologies.
Accountability pressure to demonstrate how research for development projects will bridge the ‘output - outcome gap’ and achieve impacts ‘at scale’ has increased. Consequently, efforts to develop ‘Theory of Change’ (ToC) and impact pathways that steer programs and projects to outcomes have grown within Australia’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) strategy. In response, the cross agency Food Systems Innovation (FSI) initiative piloted the use of ToC thinking within Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
Interest in farmland is rising. And, given commodity price volatility, growing human and environmental pressures, and worries about food security, this interest will increase, especially in the developing world. One of the highest development priorities in the world must be to improve smallholder agricultural productivity, especially in Africa. Smallholder productivity is essential for reducing poverty and hunger, and more and better investment in agricultural technology, infrastructure, and market access for poor farmers is urgently needed.
This work summarizes background papers prepared for the World Bank Group with significant input from government counterparts and other development partners. It takes stock of major recent developments and argues that a lot has been achieved in the last decade in terms of production of commodities for export and food consumption, with favorable impact on rural poverty reduction. It also argues that the two factors driving the recent agricultural performance, namely favorable international prices and expansion of the agricultural frontier, have reached their limits.
This paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a participatory approach which has been applied by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) and Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA) in aquaculture sector in Brazil.