Agriculture & Food Security
As the world population grows, it is essential to increase sustainable agricultural production, improve the global food supply chain, decrease food loss and waste, and ensure everyone—especially those suffering from poverty, hunger and malnutrition—has access to food. Improving yields on agricultural lands and restoration of degraded lands through sustainable agriculture techniques can also relieve pressure to clear forests for agriculture. Better management of water through improved irrigation and storage technologies, combined with development of new drought-resistant crop varieties, can contribute to sustaining drylands productivity.
Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2), “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture,” recognizes the importance of supporting sustainable agriculture, empowering small farmers, promoting gender equality, ending rural poverty, ensuring healthy lifestyles, tackling climate change, and other issues addressed by the 17 SDGs in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) takes the lead on agriculture and food security in the UN system, working in cooperation with other international and regional organizations and national governments.
Events and Articles
Showing 1 - 10 of 95 results
COP to COP Agrifood Legacies: A Key to Achieving Global Climate Goals
With key leaders from COPs past, present, and future at the table for a high-level event, policymakers, countries, and their partners build momentum to transform agrifood systems and deliver on Paris Climate Agreement goals.
Launch of Baku Harmoniya Climate Initiative for Farmers
The relevance of agrifood systems for climate action is experiencing a growing momentum, with COP 27 and COP 28 Presidencies launching, respectively, the Fast Partnership and the UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture. The Harmoniya Climate Initiative represents COP 29’s contribution, with a focus on fostering better collaboration among actors and initiatives.
Making Climate Finance Work for Climate Action in Agriculture and Food Security
Assessing the need for fundamental changes in agrifood systems, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), along with government, and World Bank leaders stressed the mere 4.3% of total mitigation and adaptation finance going to the sector along with the potential of finance to deliver improvements in food and agriculture practices and security.
Accelerating climate finance for resilient agrifood systems in fragile and conflict-affected countries
In the face of a massive gap in finance for countries impacted by fragility and conflict, a side event explored investment projects to scale up delivery of climate-resilient agriculture and water management systems, ecosystem restoration, and climate information services in Somalia, Iraq, and Burundi.
Food Day
The food-biodiversity-agriculture nexus is often overlooked, despite biodiversity serving as the foundation of food security and nutrition. Sustainable food and agriculture (agrifood) systems are essential for the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). This event explored mainstreaming food security and biodiversity considerations across all levels of participation—from farmers and communities to national, regional and global platforms.
12th Meeting of the Ad Hoc Open ended Working Group to Enhance the Functioning of the ITPGRFA Multilateral System
Negotiations on enhancing the Multilateral System of access and benefit-sharing may have a breakthrough in sight: a new compromise proposal to establish a subscription mechanism with two alternative triggers for mandatory monetary benefit-sharing: early payment upon registration or deferred payment upon commercialization.
Harmoniya 4 Climate Resilience: Empowering Farmers, Villages, and Rural Communities
This event introduced participants to the Harmoniya Initiative, which will serve as a hub for work on agrifood systems during the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Harmoniya Initiative is a joint project of the COP 29 Presidency and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
11th Meeting of the Ad Hoc Open ended Working Group to Enhance the Functioning of the ITPGRFA Multilateral System
Delegates made progress towards enhancing the Multilateral System that provides facilitated access to a list of crops considered vital for food security, with the aim to increase benefit-sharing flows to the stewards of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, which are primarily farmers in developing countries.