Knowledge Portal

This article explores the myths and realities surrounding the relationship between environmental sustainability, food security, and nutrition. According to the authors, policymakers and researchers alike often make inaccurate assumptions about technological innovations, gender, biofuels, and smallholder farming. Such sustainable food security and nutrition “myths” pose a significant challenge to the effective design and promotion of more environmentally-friendly agricultural and food systems. »

This article, published in the Global Food Security journal, examines the impacts of the United Nations World Food Programme’s (WFP’s) Purchase for Progress (P4P) program on smallholder farmers in Tanzania. P4P is a multi-year, multi-country pilot that sought to improve smallholder farmer wellbeing through a combination of food purchases from farmer organizations and supply-side interventions. »

This research paper by CCAFS is the result of a joint effort among a small group of researchers to identify pathways for transformation towards sustainable food systems, which are resilient towards shocks and towards climate change in particular. Using empirical studies, both transformations in governance systems and governance of transformations were investigated. »

This technical guide by FAO is about the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. The guide aims to support actors to take proactive measures to implement the standards and recommendations of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (Tenure Guidelines) for legally recognizing and protecting tenure rights to commons and community-based governance structures. »

This briefing by IIED argues that there is a need to develop value chains to enable organic fertilisers and composts to supply much needed organic matter to depleted soils. Soils are the foundation of all terrestrial life on the planet and are essential for agricultural production. Yet intensive agriculture involving heavy inputs of chemical fertilisers is degrading soils across South Asia and many other parts of the world, threatening food security. »

This report by FAO tries to facilitate in the systematic integration of gender equality dimensions into value chain development programmes and projects. It raises awareness on gender inequalities and discusses the importance of addressing these dimensions in value chain development, while also building a common approach for work on gender-sensitive value chain development. It tries this by bringing together key concepts from value chain development and gender and by providing concrete guiding principles for the integration of gender concerns into value chain development projects and programmes. »