Global

This blog post by Oxfam highlights the role of supermarket chains, especially discount retailers, on food prices. It is stated that German supermarket chains are partly responsible for substantially undercutting the legal minimum price for bananas in countries such as Ecuador, which has dire consequences for small agricultural producers and plantation workers. »

Aimed at policy-makers, project designers and field practitioners, this publication (PDF) by FAO provides the conceptual foundation for a new set of FAO handbooks on sustainable food value chain development. It defines the concept of a sustainable food value chain, presents a development paradigm that integrates the multidimensional concepts of sustainability and value added, highlights ten guiding principles, and discusses the potential and limitations of the approach. »

This handbook for Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) by the Africa Soil Health Consortium (ASHC) is a 156 page that provides a detailed explanation of ISFM principles as applied in a number of African countries. It is anticipated that these materials will be useful for training extension workers in soil fertility management techniques in SSA and for workers involved in rural development that would like to find out more about the principles and practices of ISFM. »

This paper explores to what extent voluntary certification schemes are able to deliver on no deforestation commitments. Certification schemes play an important role in improving the environmental and social sustainability of supply chains. Yet, this report highlights a number of their limitations which form a barrier to delivering on no deforestation targets. »

This ten year retrospective on the right to food guidelines analyzes some of the main issues experienced while implementing the Right to Food Guidelines over the past decade and looks to possible avenues for making use of the Right to Food Guidelines to achieve the right to adequate food of all in the years to come. The report looks back and tries to understand what has worked and why, where the bottlenecks lie, and how governments and their partners can be most effective in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. »

This paper elaborates on how value chains can contribute to improved nutrition outcomes. Value chain approaches can provide useful frameworks to examine the food system and have the potential to achieve improved nutritional outcomes by leveraging market-based systems. However, understanding the links between value chains, the overall business environment in which they operate, and nutrition among targeted populations is complex. »