Briefing

This briefing note by the The Initiative for Smallholder Finance, details how philanthropic investment can play an influential role in mitigating foreign exchange risk. The note emerged from conversations with stakeholders at various levels of the agricultural value chain who expressed concerns about managing the foreign exchange (FX) exposure in their businesses – traders who pre-finance farmers and financiers who lend to smallholders and agri-businesses, among others. »

This practice brief provides an overview of Integrated Manure Management benefits and the challenges to adopt integrated manure management. The key benefit of Integrated Manure Management is that it prevents nutrient losses as much as possible, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving food security. »

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 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 policy brief identifies policy interventions that can anticipate and mitigate the negative dietary and nutritional outcomes of price volatility and market uncertainty. Food price volatility is a serious global concern. Since the food crisis of 2008, the world has struggled to address unexpected, rapid rises and falls in global food prices, which have sparked political unrest and increased economic risks across the food system. »

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. »