Global

Agricultural cooperatives and producer organizations are institutional innovations which have the potential to reduce poverty and improve food security. This book presents a raft of international case studies, from developing and transition countries, to analyse the internal and external challenges that these complex organizations face and the solutions that they have developed. »

This article focuses on the urban-rural linkages in the emerging food system. Recent debates on food and agricultural issues emphasize the significance of the spatialization of food systems and location of agriculture. In this emerging food system geography, urban-rural relationships play a significant role in food value chains, food security and nutrition, which is still poorly understood. This presentation explores these issues based on rural-urban scenarios in 2050. »

This report examines major food policy issues, global and regional developments, and commitments made in 2015, and presents data on key food policy indicators. The report also proposes key policy options for 2016 and beyond to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. In 2015, the global community made major commitments on sustainable development and climate change. »

This article focuses on how knowledge sharing and strategic research collaboration could speed-up genetic, physiological, and molecular understanding of important cereal traits. Cereals, like wheat, rice, maize, pearl millet, and sorghum provide over half of the world’s food calories. However, climate change impacts cereal production. To maintain global food security, there is an increasing need to exploit existing genetic variability and develop cultivars with superior genetic yield potential and stress adaptation. »

This working paper scrutinizes the challenges and opportunities for bringing a gender analysis together with an analysis of social-ecological resilience in the context of policy-orientated small-scale fisheries research. The authors argue that whilst the analysis of social-ecological resilience has made valuable contributions to integrating social dimensions into research and policy-making on natural resource management, it has so far demonstrated limited success in effectively integrating considerations of gender equity. »

This briefing note by the Initiative for Smallholder Finance explores how innovative lenders are using new data sources and analytics to assess the creditworthiness of borrowers. It seeks to supplement the growing body of literature on alternative applications of data in assessing credit risk with a discussion of the opportunity to extend these models to the agriculture sector. »