The sustainability of food value chains is an increasing concern for consumers, food companies and policy-makers. Global food chains are often perceived to be less sustainable than local food chains. Yet, thorough food chain analyses and comparisons of different food chains across sustainability dimensions are rare. In this article it is analyzed the local Belgian and global Peruvian asparagus value chains and explore their sustainability performance.
As calls for bolstering environmental services on croplands have grown more insistent during the past two decades, the search for ways to foster sustainable, reduced input agriculture has become more urgent. In this context authors re-examine by means of a meta-analysis the argument, first proposed by Robert McC. Netting, that small scale, mixed crop – livestock farming, a common livelihood among poor rural peoples, encourages environmentally sustainable agricultural practices.
Rice is one of the most important food crops in sub-Saharan Africa. Climate change, variability, and economic globalization threatens to disrupt rice value chains across the subcontinent, undermining their important role in economic development, food security, and poverty reduction. This paper maps existing research on the vulnerability of rice value chains, synthesizes the evidence and the risks posed by climate change and economic globalization, and discusses agriculture and rural development policies and their relevance for the vulnerability of rice value chains in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Guidance Note on Operationalization provides a brief recap of the conceptual underpinnings and principles of the TAP Common Framework as well as a more detailed guide to operationalization of the proposed dual pathways approach. It offers also a strategy for monitoring and evaluation as well as a toolbox of select tools that may be useful at the different stages of the CD for AIS cycle.
The Conceptual Background provides an in-depth analysis of the conceptual underpinnings and principles of the TAP Common Framework. It is also available in French and Spanish.
This book represents the proceedings of the FAO international technical conference dedicated to Agricultural Biotechnologies in Developing Countries (ABDC-10) that took place in Guadalajara, Mexico on 1-4 March 2010. A major objective of the conference was to take stock of the application of biotechnologies across the different food and agricultural sectors in developing countries, in order to learn from the past and to identify options for the future to face the challenges of food insecurity, climate change and natural resource degradation.
This report provides a synthesis of all findings and information generated through a “stocktaking” process that involved a desk study of Prolinnova documents and evaluation reports, a questionnaire to 40 staff members of international organizations in agricultural research and development (ARD), self-assessment by the Country Platforms (CPs) and backstopping visits to five CPs. In 2014, the Prolinnova network saw a need to re-strategise in a changing context, and started this process by reviewing the activities it had undertaken and assessing its own functioning.
This evaluation report discusses the findings, conclusions and recommendations on the project “Strengthening Community Resilience to Change: Combining Local Innovative Capacity with Scientific Research (CLIC-SR)” under the umbrella of the network Promoting Local Innovation in ecologically oriented agriculture and NRM (PROLINNOVA). This project was implemented in four Eastern African countries, namely Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Le document de synthèse fournit une synthèse des concepts et des principes du cadre commun développé dans le cadre de la Plate-forme pour l'agriculture tropicale (TAP). L'objectif du Cadre Commun de la TAP est de promouvoir une meilleure cohérence et un impact plus fort du renforcement des capacités (RC) en soutien aux systèmes d'innovation agricole (AIS) sous les tropiques. Développé en 2015 à travers un processus hautement participatif, il a été convenu que le Cadre devrait fournir des bases conceptuelles et des indications pratiques.
La «Note d'Orientation sur l'Opérationnalisation» récapitule brièvement les fondements conceptuels et les principes du Cadre commun de travail pour le renforcement des capacités des systèmes d'innovation agricole et fournit également un guide détaillé de l'opérationnalisation de l'approche à Double Entrée du renforcement des capacités (RC) pour les systèmes d'innovation agricole (SIA). Le document offre aussi une stratégie de suivi et d'évaluation ainsi qu'une Boîte à Outils d'outils sélectionnés qui peuvent être utiles aux différentes étapes du RC pour les SIA.