Status report

This report by the Global Network For The Right To Food And Nutrition concludes that transnational corporations are monopolizing control over seeds with dire consequences for human rights and biodiversity. Increasingly, seed and agrochemical businesses seek to privatize, monopolize and control seeds by patenting and commodifying this very source of life. Meanwhile, peasant and indigenous communities, who have been the developers and guardians of seeds for millennia, are finding their rights to save, use, exchange and sell seeds overshadowed by a corporate agenda that prioritizes profit over human rights and the sustainable maintenance of nature. »

This report by AGRA is the fourth volume of the Africa Agriculture Status Report series focusing on, “Progress towards African Agricultural Transformation”. The series has the objective of producing an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of emerging issues and challenges being faced by Africa’s smallholder farmers. The 2016 Report has tracked the progress made in the last decade with the MDGs and the Maputo Declaration as critical benchmarks, through to the current status, considering the Malabo Declaration and the projection and trajectory towards 2030 in line with the SDGs. »

This report highlights the current status of youth in sub-Saharan Africa and present the opportunities and potential that the region’s ‘youth bulge’ and ‘youthening’ generation brings to agriculture. »

International food prices declined 14% between August 2014 and May 2015, sliding into a five-year low and continuing the sharp price declines observed in previous months. This issue of the Food Price Watch reflects on the unforeseen breadth and depth of the current oil price crash, and the potential impacts it might have on international food prices, poverty, and inequality. It includes following headings: global price trends; domestic price trends; and linking international oil and food prices. »

This year´s annual State of Food Insecurity in the World report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, takes stock of progress made towards achieving the internationally established Millennium Development Goal (MDG1) and World Food Summit hunger targets and reflects on what needs to be done, as we transition to the new post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda. »

The Africa Agriculture Status Report 2014 (PDF) presents a comprehensive overview of smallholder agriculture in Africa and addresses the ‘climate-smart agricultural’ (CSA) sector in the continent. The role of soil fertility and plant nutrition in strengthening the vigor of farming systems and make them less vulnerable to climate change is explicitly addressed in this report. »