Global

Oxfam’s ‘Behind the Brands’ assesses the companies’ policies and commitments to improve food security and sustainability. It looks at how well they perform on issues relating to transparency, women, workers, farmers, land, water, and climate. In the latest ‘scorecard’ of March 2015, which rates the agricultural sourcing policies of the top 10 international food and »

This working paper (PDF) by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UNSDSN) provides a roadmap for the Financing for Sustainable Development discussions in the lead-up to the Addis Conference. The paper focuses on a broad array of issues and examines some of the key questions involved in designing new institutions to handle the long-term, complex investments needed for key sustainable development priorities. Chapter 5.3 covers Sustainable agriculture, food systems, and improved nutrition. »

Drawing on data collected from policy documents, interviews and participant observation, this book by Jessica Duncan examines the re-organization and functioning of a UN Committee that is coming to be known as a best practice in global governance. Framed by key challenges that plague global governance, the impact and implication of increased civil society engagement are examined by tracing policy negotiations within the CFS, in particular, policy roundtables on smallholder sensitive investment and food price volatility and negotiations on the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security, and the Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition. »

This publication seeks to understand how public-private-producer partnerships (PPPPs) in agricultural value chains can be designed and implemented to achieve more sustained increases in income for smallholder farmers. PPPPs also explicitly involve farmers (or producers), hence the fourth ‘P’ is added to the more familiar designation of ‘public-private partnerships’. »

The main purpose of the 50 Breakthroughs study by LIGTT is to identify where game-changing technologies for sustainable development are most required. The study’s main objectives are to: 1) foster a thought-provoking conversation about the role of technology in solving the world’s most pressing problems, 2) provide contextual background for technologists; and 3) provide decision-makers a guide to asking the hard–but important—questions. »

This article (PDF) in PNAS by a group of researchers provides evidence of change in the relative importance of different crop plants in national food supplies worldwide over the past 50 years. Trends in the richness, abundance, and composition of crop species in national food supplies worldwide were assessed. The study shows that over the »