Knowledge Portal

The paper examines the complexity and fragmentation of the governance regime for FNS and the policy implications for the European Union and the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS). It shows that the current governance regime is still highly fragmented and tends to privilege the best resourced actors and specific (political) approaches to FNS, and hence, risks impairing the input legitimacy of governance. The fragmentation is mainly linked to the existence of two types of arenas: multilateral ones and multistakeholder ones. »

This report elaborates on the importance of gender in policy processes related to the right to food. The purpose of the study is to identify potential entry-points for the development of activities on the right to adequate food in both countries. It analyses the importance of gender issues in key dimensions of national policy and legislative processes currently ongoing considered as viable opportunities to initiate or strengthen the implementation of the Right to Food Guidelines at country level. »

This policy note explores key findings from a farm-level analysis of smallholders’ crop choice under different policy and risk scenarios. Smallholder farmers planting decisions are examined for five major crops – maize, tobacco, common bean, groundnut, and soyabean – using a farm-level risk model. The policy scenarios include: (a) reducing the volatility of farm gate soyabean prices by 25 percent; and (b) introducing a loan package for soyabean inputs. These simulations were conducted both without and in the presence of a loan package for tobacco inputs. »

In this blog, Grace Mwaura questions the nature of livelihood opportunities that young people are being encouraged to pursue and their implications for the future. She highlights three key issues around the narrative of enticing young people into agriculture: the ecological footprint, the markets, and the policy incentives. »

This publication assesses how to improve agricultural value chains, particularly value chains that include smallholders. Despite increasing use of innovation-system and value-chain approaches to promote rural income growth, poverty reduction, and greater gender equity, there is little systematic knowledge about how to operationalize value-chain approaches in different contexts and how best to evaluate innovation and value-chain development. This book consists of 14 papers that present results of recent work associated with CGIAR and its partners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. »

This PhD dissertation examines the impacts of large-scale farming in Ethiopia on local economic development, household food security, incomes, employment, and the environment. The study concluded that the approach of large-scale mechanized farming contributes little to the economic and agricultural transformation of the nation. Local people generally lose out in respect of land transactions and investments, and they are expropriated from their customary land rights to the benefit of national goals. »