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.
Water is scarce and pivotal for the Sahel, not only for increasing the productivity for millions of small-scale farmers but also for countering loss of arable land resulting from erosion and warming temperatures. A major barrier to the use of water in the Sahel is the lack of infrastructure and technologies – 45 percent of the population do not have access to water, and only 2 percent of arable land is irrigated (OECD, 2022).
Africa–Europe Cooperation and Digital Transformation explores the opportunities and challenges for cooperation between Africa and Europe in the digital sphere.
An assessment of the Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) of Rwanda’s small livestock sub-sector was conducted in 2021. This report describes the AIS of the small livestock sub-sector in terms of key functions, the underlying causes of their performance, and opportunities for improvement. It presents priorities and entry points for strengthening the AIS of the small livestock sub-sector in Rwanda, with focus on key organisations and the policy level.
The IFAD Innovation Strategy does not set new objectives for staff, but rather defines what is needed to create an innovation-friendly environment and to support staff in achieving the expected results.To strengthen its innovative capabilities and become a better catalyst of pro-poor innovation, IFAD will focus on four clusters of activities: (i) Building capabilities and understanding of challenges requiring innovation; (ii) Nurturing partnerships and facilitating an innovation network; (iii) Embedding rigorous innovation processes and the related risk management into IFAD’s core business
The new challenges facing the European agricultural and rural sectors call for a review of the links between knowledge production and its use to foster innovation, and for a deeper analysis of the potential of the current Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) to react to the evolving context. This paper highlights how the Italian AKIS places itself in the new emerging framework, with a particular emphasis on the incentives guiding the system and the experiences of monitoring and evaluating the national AKIS policy.
This book is the re-titled third edition of the widely used Agricultural Extension (van den Ban & Hawkins, 1988, 1996). Building on the previous editions,Communication for Rural Innovation maintains and adapts the insights and conceptual models of value today, while reflecting many new ideas, angles and modes of thinking concerning how agricultural extension is taught and carried through today.
The Establishment of the Rahad Scheme in Eastern Sudan in the 1970s established an agricultural innovation system where formal actors such as extension, research, finance institutions and informal actors such as agro pastoral organizations are networking to provide better livelihoods within the irrigated scheme area. This investigation focuses on the roles and interactions of agro pastoral organizations and finance institutions in relation to extension work in Rahad Scheme.