Global

This policy brief reviews food safety issues that are critical to poor and vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries, with a particular focus on their impact on healthy diets. With growing international concern over unsafe food, it is important that policies in agriculture and the food system are designed to ensure both the nutritional quality and the safety of the foods we eat. While food safety has traditionally been a health or medical matter, it is increasingly recognized as an important issue for agriculture and food systems since it influences trade, rural incomes, and purchasing power and workers productivity. »

This report argues that the benefits of urban agriculture are important but may be overstated. The report examines the benefits and limitations of agriculture and provides an overview of the documented outcomes of urban agriculture so far. Urban agriculture’s most significant benefits center around its ability to increase social capital, community well-being, and civic engagement with the food system. However, special attention should be paid to ensure that residents have a voice in decision-making. »

This report argues that the global food system must transform to feed growing cities and that this transformation need to create opportunities for small-scale and especially female farmers. The growth of cities fuels an unprecedented demand for food, due to changing diets of people moving to cities, in combination with increase population growth, climate change. Feeding cities presents a major opportunity to improve the plight of millions of small-scale farmers and rural residents trapped in subsistence agriculture and joblessness. »

This brief from GACSA, CGIAR and FAO focus on taking a gender-responsive approach to Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA). This means that the particular needs, priorities, and realities of men and women are recognized and adequately addressed in the design and application of CSA so that both men and women can equally benefit. »

This article in the Agronomy for Sustainable Development Journal explores some of the existing methods to assess potential grain yield, the size of the gap between average and rainfall-limited potential yield and to suggest pathways for future gains in crop yields in the presence of soil degradation, climate change and seasonal variability of rainfall. They focus mainly on cereal and grain legume crops but recognise that oilseed crops such as canola and mustard play an important role in many rainfed cropping systems. »

This info note provides guidance for the design and development of climate-smart value chains. It provides lessons learned from the learning event on 25 February 2016 in Rome, held by IFAD and the CCAFS-CIGAR. Through a simple five step process, it provides a range of tools and resources that are available to supportthe development of climate-smart value chains in different stages. The key conclusion of the learning event is that building incountry capacity to use relevant tools for real decisions is even more important than building the tools. »