Agriculture is the backbone of many developing countries – it is essential for enhancing food security, reducing poverty, and improving nutrition. In Laos, small-scale farmers constitute the majority of the population. They face challenges such as poor soil fertility, limited market access, a lack of knowledge and resources to improve their farming practices, and are frequently exposed to natural disasters such as drought and floods. As a result, malnutrition is still prevalent and, on the national level, stunting affects 33 per cent of children under five years old. The Agriculture For Nutrition (AFN) project in Laos was initiated in 2016 to address these challenges by providing training and support to small-scale farmers in improving their agricultural practices, increasing food production, and combating malnutrition.

Deforestation is a complex issue that has gained prominence in worldwide political agendas, sparking a wide array of measures, public and private, that aim to enhance forest conservation. In this regard, this paper seeks to illustrate examples of measures that Costa Rica, Peru, Rwanda, Indonesia, and Gabon, agriculture commodity-producing countries in the Global South, have put in place to address deforestation while exploring the potential synergies with voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs). Addressing deforestation requires a strategy that includes many complementary measures, and in designing such measures, it is useful to learn from the experiences of governments that have implemented different measures or approaches. The experiences of the selected countries can provide useful starting points for governments in the Global South seeking to preserve their forests and comply with emerging regulations and international frameworks that target deforestation-free commodity production, as well as forest conservation and restoration more broadly.

Food production and consumption patterns have changed significantly in recent decades. Increased incomes have triggered demand for higher-value food products, while urbanization has led to the expansion of retailing. In the meantime, food supply chains have become ever more integrated and globalized. This has imposed additional constraints on the majority of small-scale and semi-subsistence farmers. The required shift from subsistence farming to more commercially-oriented farming is a slow process and often hampered by weak management and business skills, limited ability to manage risks, the quality, quantity and timing of production, poorly organized producers, lack of capital, poorly developed markets, and the high costs of intermediaries and transactions.To overcome these challenges, rural producers need support. Pluralism in extension and advisory services(EAS) can facilitate a broader range of services, and play a role in facilitating market linkages, developing the necessary skills, coaching on business and marketing, organizing producers, and brokering relations, as well as fostering agri-entrepreneurship both on-farm and along the agricultural value chain.

Agrifood systems encompass primary agricultural production of food and non-food products (from crops, livestock, fisheries, forestry and aquaculture), the production of food of non-agricultural origin (e.g. synthetic meat), the food supply chain from producer to consumer and the final consumer of food. Globally, these systems produce some 11 billion tonnes of food each year and form the backbone of many economies. In an ideal world, agrifood systems would be resilient, inclusive and sustainable, producing sufficient, safe and nutritious food for all, and generating livelihoods that guarantee people’s economic access to that food. Today, however, agrifood systems fail to keep about 10 percent of the world’s population free from hunger. Increasingly, food supply chains and the livelihoods of agrifood systems’ actors are disrupted by shocks – from droughts and floods to armed conflict and food price hikes – and long-term stresses, including climate change and environmental degradation. 

Nicaragua is the largest country in Central America, and agriculture is one of the engines of economic and social development. The agricultural sector contributes 16.1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 33% of formal employment and the food security of the population. There are 260,000 producers involved in agricultural production. The present experience has been developed in Cantagallo, in the municipality of Condega, in the department of Estelí, which has been declared an Ecological Park by the Mayor's Office. Agricultural production in Cantagallo is focused on small livestock, vegetables, high-altitude coffee, basic grains, potatoes, and others. The school model is based on the experience developed by the Organic Agriculture Movement of Nicaragua (MAONIC), in which agroecological technological innovations are promoted through a "learning by doing" approach and is being developed in the Municipal Climate Change Platform, an entity led by the Mayor's Office of Condega, with the participation of public and private actors.

Local stakeholders and agricultural producers in Latin America have limited access to agroclimatic information and, when they do gain access to it, they have difficulty translating it into processable and actionable knowledge. While climate services are recognized as contributing to bridging the gap between the generation of climate information and its use by stakeholders, their provision and use in Latin America still represents a critical challenge. Effective implementation of climate services implies a process of change in attitude, knowledge and skillsof stakeholders (e.g., institutions, extension services and farmers) to inform decision making in production systems given the expected climate variations in their region. The approach of the Local Technical Agroclimatic Committees (MTAs) has proven to be a very effective mechanism for delivering free climate services that seek precisely to contribute to closing this gap.

This report dives deep into a reality of agriculture: the sector is undergoing profound technological change at an accelerating pace. New technologies, unimaginable just a few years ago, are rapidly emerging. Many of the most recent technologies facilitate precision agriculture, a management strategy that uses information to optimize input and resource use. Recent technological developments may astound and amaze, inspiring the desire to learn more. However, it is important to remember that technological change is not a new phenomenon and, crucially, not all agrifood systems actors have access to it. FAO has been studying this subject for decades. What we see today is no more than a consolidation point – for now – of a lengthy process of technological change in agriculture that has been accelerating over the last two centuries.

Several studies have reviewed pluralistic extension systems, but not within IFAD’s specific context and objectives of working through government services and producer organizations, and targeting poor people in rural and remote areas. A portfolio review of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) initiatives found varying levels of success and a lack of informationon impact, outreach and quality of extension services provided through pluralistic services (USAID, 2019).With the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 and the subsequent restrictions on movement and gatherings, ICT has become very important in EAS to reach farmers. Fewer studies have also reviewed how ICT can address some of the limitations identified in both public and private extension.

Chile es un país líder en la exportación de alimentos, endonde la apicultura juega un rol fundamental y cuenta con más de 1.300.000 colmenas para apoyar la producción de alimentos a través de la polinización. Las buenas prácticas deben ser abordadas de generación en generación de apicultores para favorecer el mantenimiento de colmenas sanas y activas para la prestación de servicios sistémicos de polinización. Sin embargo, la apicultura nacional cuenta con pocos avances tecnológicos asociados a la actividad, sumado a la disminución de apicultores debido a que no existe un recambio generacional y a una precepción muy limitada sobre la actividad apícola por parte de las nuevas generaciones.

Countries have different approaches in providing agricultural advisory services to farmers; it is not clear which provide best services and lead to least human or environmental hazards. In China, agricultural extension workers, trained as plant doctors, run plant clinics with at least six varying degrees of linkage to agri-business. More than 20,000 farmer queries were recorded during > 3,800 plant clinic sessions between 2014 and 2015, including the diagnosis of > 125 plant health problems of > 70 common crops as well as the related pest management recommendations. Diagnosis and recommendations appeared of high quality across all plant clinic types. Agri-business-connected plant doctors provided slightly less complete written advice regarding integrated pest management options than did non-business plant doctors; but gave slightly more detailed advice. Business-connected plant doctors advised slightly more highly hazardous pesticides and fewer antibiotics than non-business doctors; but differences are tiny. Overall, agri-business-connected and non-business plant doctors comparably reached farmers.

Rice is the world’s most important staple food for some 4 billion people, while in Asia, the poorest of the poor derive up to 70% of their calorie intake from rice. The crop is produced by some 144 million farm households, and harvested from 166 million hectares annually. Rice farming is associated with poverty in many areas. About 900 million of the world’s poor depend on rice as producers or consumers, and out of these, some 400 million poor and undernourished people are engaged in growing rice. Because of its geographic expansion and typical manner of wetland cultivation, worldwide rice production contributes about 10% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the agricultural sector, mainly because of methane (CH4) emissions from continuously floodedwetland rice fields.

Nigeria’s agricultural sector is dominated by smallholder farmers, who represents about 80% of the farmers and operate on farm sizes averaging about 2.5 hectares. If appropriately supported,the smallholder farming sector can put the country on the path to self-sufficiency and ensure satietyfor household food consumption. However, this potential is undermined by productivity challenges,high post-harvest losses and lack of commercialization. Post-harvest losses are as high as 40%, driven bypoor handling techniques and lack of adequate storage facilities and infrastructure. Consequently, smallholder farmers receive lower prices due to quality losses and encounter difficulty in accessingcredit for their working capital needs.AGRA recognizes that a well-designed and efficient National Agricultural Warehouse System can provide many benefits to smallholder farmers, cooperatives, traders, and other players across the agricultural commodity value chains. 

Investing in farmers – what is known as ‘agriculture human capital’ – is crucial to addressing challenges facing our global agri-food systems, from sustainably feeding the world’s growing population with food that is safe, healthy and nutritious to finding innovative solutions for more resilient and climate-smart agriculture. Investing in farmers is just as important as investing in infrastructure and other physical capital. Yet less than 3 percent of global agriculture development finance between 2015 and 2018 was invested specifically in strengthening the skills and capacities of agricultural producers.How do you invest in building the human capital of agricultural producers? What factors make that investment successful? The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and IFPRI, with support from PIM, sought answers to these and other questions in their joint global study.

In Nigeria, malnutrition poses a significant challenge, costing the country billions of dollars each year in lost productivity alone. A clear link exists between nutrition and food systems, meaning that food systems transformation could help address this. Nigeria’s plan for the transformation of its food systems, presented after the landmark 2021United Nations Food Systems Summit, is proof of its strong political dedication to implementing impactful changes in the country’s food systems. Continued investment by the government of Nigeria in key areas including food security and nutrition and support for value chain and market systems, will be critical for the country’s journey towards building sustainable, responsive, and inclusive food systems.

Even after several decades of green revolution, malnutrition continues to be a major development challenge in much of South Asia, and India has a major share of the malnourished people in the region. The nutritional issues in India are complex and therefore require a multifaceted, multidisciplinary solution. One facet of the solutionis increasing knowledge about the causes of and solutions to malnutrition at the farmhousehold level through agricultural extension. Disseminating nutrition-sensitive agricultural knowledge is not currently an activity of agricultural extension in India, but there is great potential for integrating it through the well-established network of extension officers. For nutrition goals to be integrated into extension, the curricula provided to current and future agricultural extension agents must be revisited. As part of the South Asia Food and Nutrition Security Initiative (SAFANSI), this paper focuses on approaches to incorporating such nutrition content into the agricultural extension curriculum. Three state agricultural universities in Tamil Nadu, united Andhra Pradesh,and Bihar were used as case studies for the curriculum review.