Investing in farmers – or agriculture human capital – is crucial to addressing challenges in our agri-food systems. A global study carried out by the FAO Investment Centre and the International Food Policy Research Institute, with support from the CGIAR Research Programme on Policies, Institutions and Markets and the FAO Research and Extension Unit, looks at agriculture human capital investments, from recent trends to promising initiatives in Cameroon, Chile, Côte d’Ivoire, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Peru, Rwanda and the United States of America. It also includes 11 shorter case studies, ranging from pastoralist training centres to the inclusion of indigenous communities. The global study aims to provide governments, international financing institutions, the private sector and other partners with the evidence and analysis needed to make more and better investments in agriculture human capital. This publication is part of the Directions in Investment series under the FAO Investment Centre’s Knowledge for Investment (K4I) programme.

Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) provides the interface for the meeting of farmers and scientists. This is a meeting of different social worlds, contesting agendas, cultures of cooperation and networks of actors. Like in other disciplines, scientists in AR4D have developed their own culture of science. However, the role of their culture of science in the negotiations and encounters with farmers’ social worlds is rarely discussed. Analysing AR4D with a theoretical framework based on Science and Technology Studies (STS) helps us to highlight important issues of power and access in AR4D. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate how the introduction of certain technologies has interacted with the lives of people in an AR4D project in Ethiopia, and to highlight the potential and limitations of applying STS to AR4D. We interviewed farmers, scientists, extensionists, policy makers and donors associated with an AR4D project in the Ethiopian Highlands using qualitative social research approaches. Akrich’s theory on scripts provided the theoretical framework for analysis. Our findings provide examples for the re-inscription of technology and access in an AR4D project, leading to trade-offs and shifting of power between different actors. We conclude that understanding AR4D as part of a network of actors with its own culture of science provides an essential learning ground. We recommend STS to be applied more widely in AR4D to explore the nature of these networks to highlight what makes technology work for users in the long term.

As this report demonstrates, the way governments around the world support agriculture is a factor in the global and environmental challenges that agri-food systems are facing. Current support to agricultural producers worldwide works against the attainment of the SDGs, the targets of the Paris Agreement and our common future. This support is biased towards measures that are harmful and unsustainable for nature, climate, nutrition and health, while disadvantaging women and other smallholder farmers in the sector. At a time when many countries’ public finances are constrained, particularly in the developing world, global agricultural support to producers currently accounts for almost USD 540 billion a year. Over two-thirds of this support is considered price-distorting and largely harmful to the environment.

This report highlights how coherent policymaking for agriculture can result in significant benefits for the sector, the environment and human health. By providing evidence on the potential positive impacts of eliminating harmful agricultural support, it makes a convincing case for repurposing such support – rather than eliminating it altogether. The report presents six steps that governments can consider to develop and implement agricultural support repurposing strategies, while also recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and that an optimal repurposing strategy will depend on many factors and on country context.

The coronavirus pandemic has upended local, national, and global food systems, and put the Sustainable Development Goals further out of reach. But lessons from the world’s response to the pandemic can help address future shocks and contribute to food system change. In the 2021 Global Food Policy Report, IFPRI researchers and other food policy experts explore the impacts of the pandemic and government policy responses, particularly for the poor and disadvantaged, and consider what this means for transforming our food systems to be healthy, resilient, efficient, sustainable, and inclusive. Chapters in the report look at balancing health and economic policies, promoting healthy diets and nutrition, strengthening social protection policies and inclusion, integrating natural resource protection into food sector policies, and enhancing the contribution of the private sector. Regional sections look at the diverse experiences around the world, and a special section on finance looks at innovative ways of funding food system transformation. Critical questions addressed include: – Who felt the greatest impact from falling incomes and food system disruptions caused by the pandemic? – How can countries find an effective balance among health, economic, and social policies in the face of crisis? – How did lockdowns affect diet quality and quantity in rural and urban areas? – Do national social protection systems such as cash transfers have the capacity to protect poor and vulnerable groups in a global crisis? – Can better integration of agricultural and ecosystem polices help prevent the next pandemic? – How did companies accelerate ongoing trends in digitalization and integration to keep food supply chains moving? – What different challenges did the pandemic spark in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and how did these regions respond?

Since its first edition in 2010, the OECD Development Centre’s Perspectives on Global Development report has tracked development trends and policy priorities in developing countries. This new report examines the phenomenon of discontent. Between the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, discontent surged around the world. It was especially evident in middle-income countries and was often most acute amongst the middle classes that have emerged in developing countries over recent decades. The report explores the economic, political and sociological drivers of discontent and argues that building back better from the COVID-19 pandemic in developing countries will require approaches that simultaneously improve citizens’ well-being, promote productive transformation and strengthen social cohesion. The report concludes by examining the international dimension of discontent and demonstrates how weaknesses and imbalances in the present multilateral system are eroding humankind’s capacity for collective action in the face of global threats, notably the climate crisis. The rise in discontent has exposed failings in prevailing economic, social and political models at all levels: addressing discontent means fixing these systems, and doing so in an inclusive and sustainable manner.

Sustainable food production needs to increase if it is to meet the rising and evolving food demands caused by growing populations, increasing incomes and urbanization. However, it faces numerous challenges. Competition for water resources is increasing – not only between people and the natural environment, but between cities and rural areas as well. Overuse of water due to wasteful irrigation management is worsening water scarcity. Climate change is bringing higher temperatures and changing precipitation patterns, as well as a higher likelihood of increased weather variability and extreme events. At the same time, agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, so sustainable agriculture intensification also needs to address climate change by reducing GHG emissions and sequestering carbon.

Creating a sustainable world will require significant change in the way our institutions function and act. What follows is one attempt to outline some lessons learned—in the form of five metaphors—that I have found useful in trying to foster institutional change in universities.

The metaphors grew out of a 12-year process—from 1999 to 2011—of trying to get the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) created at the University of British Columbia (UBC). CIRS was designed to be a living lab of sustainability and net positive in four environmental and three human ways (it eventually succeeded in five of these goals). Creating it proved much more challenging than expected. What became evident as we tried to get this building and its programs conceived, funded, approved, designed and implemented, is that there were many institutional road-blocks, grounded in the normal decision-making practices and institutional culture of the university, that worked against our efforts.

Three farm sector bills were passed by the Parliament of India in September, 2020 and turned into laws. These laws are named as
following:

1. The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion
   and Facilitation) Act, 2020.
2. Farmers (Empowerment & Protection) Agreement of
   Price Assurance and farm Services Act, 2020.
3. Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

The first law aims at creating an ecosystem for providing freedom to farmers and traders to trade with free choice. The second law aims at empowering the farmers to engage with the agri-business firms and other important players of agricultural value chains by providing a national framework for mutual agreements. The third law removes the basic food items from the list of essential commodities in order to reduce excessive regulatory restrictions on private business operations in agriculture.