Agriculture and Food
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A strong food and agriculture system is fundamental to economic growth, poverty reduction, environmental sustainability, and human health. The Agriculture and Food Series is intended to prompt public discussion and inform policies that will deliver higher incomes, reduce hunger, improve sustainability, and generate better health and nutrition from the food we grow and eat. It expands on the former Agriculture and Rural Development series by considering issues from farm to fork, in both rural and urban settings. Titles in this series undergo internal and external review under the management of the World Bank’s Agriculture and Food Global Practice.
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Publication Agricultural Innovation Systems : An Investment Sourcebook(World Bank, 2012) World BankThis sourcebook draws on the emerging principles of Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) analysis and action to help to identify, design, and implement the investments, approaches, and complementary interventions that appear most likely to strengthen innovation systems and promote agricultural innovation and equitable growth. Although the sourcebook discusses why investments in AISs are becoming so important, it gives most of its attention to how specific approaches and practices can foster innovation in a range of contexts. The sourcebook is targeted to the key operational staff in international and regional development agencies and national governments who design and implement lending projects and to the practitioners who design thematic programs and technical assistance packages. The sourcebook is also an important resource for the research community and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and may be a useful reference for the private sector, farmer organizations, and individuals with an interest in agricultural innovation. It concludes with details on the sourcebook's structure, a summary of the themes covered in each module, and a discussion of the cross-cutting themes treated throughout the sourcebook.Publication Gender and Governance in Rural Services : Insights from India, Ghana, and Ethiopia(World Bank, 2010) World BankAs the first output from the gender and governance in rural services project, this report presents descriptive findings and qualitative analysis of accountability mechanisms in agricultural extension and rural water supply in India, Ghana, and Ethiopia, paying specific attention to gender responsiveness. The gender and governance in rural services project seeks to generate policy-relevant knowledge on strategies to improve agricultural and rural service delivery, with a focus on providing more equitable access to these services, especially for women. The project focuses on agricultural extension, as an example of an agricultural service, and drinking water, as an example of rural service that is not directly related to agriculture but is of high relevance for rural women. A main goal of this project was to generate empirical micro level evidence about the ways various accountability mechanisms for agricultural and rural service provision work in practice and to identify factors that influence the suitability of different governance reform strategies that aim to make service provision more gender responsive. Three out of four poor people in the developing world live in rural areas, and most of them depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods. Providing economic services, such as agricultural extension, is essential to using agriculture for development. At the same time, the rural poor need a range of basic services, such as drinking water, education, and health services. Such services are difficult to provide in rural areas because they are subject to the "triple challenge" of market, state, and community failure. As a result of market failure, the private sector does not provide these services to the rural poor to the extent that is desirable from society's point of view. The state is not very effective in providing these services either, because these services have to be provided every day throughout the country, even in remote areas, and because they require discretion and cannot easily be standardized, especially if they are demand driven. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and communities themselves are interesting alternative providers of these services, but they too can fail, because of capacity constraints and local elite capture. This triple challenge of market, state, and community failure results in the poor provision of agricultural and rural services, a major obstacle to agricultural and rural development.Publication The Sunken Billions : The Economic Justification for Fisheries Reform(World Bank, 2009) World Bank; Food and Agriculture OrganizationThis study and previous studies indicate that the current marine catch could be achieved with approximately half of the current global fishing effort. In other words, there is massive overcapacity in the global fleet. The excess fleets competing for the limited fish resources result in stagnant productivity and economic inefficiency. In response to the decline in physical productivity, the global fleet has attempted to maintain profitability by reducing labor costs, lobbying for subsidies, and increasing investment in technology. Partly as a result of the poor economic performance, real income levels of fishers remain depressed as the costs per unit of harvest have increased. Although the recent changes in food and fuel prices have altered the fishery economy, over the past decade real landed fish prices have stagnated, exacerbating the problem. The value of the marine capture seafood production at the point of harvest is some 20 percent of the $400 billion global food fish market. The market strength of processors and retailers and the growth of aquaculture, which now accounts for some 50 percent of food fish production, have contributed to downward pressure on producer prices. In technical terms, this study estimates the loss of potential economic rent in the global fishery. For the purposes of this study, economic rent is considered broadly equivalent to net economic benefits, which is the term used throughout most of the report. This study estimated the difference between the potential and actual net economic benefits from global marine fisheries using 2004 as the base year. The estimate was made using a model that aggregated the world's highly diverse fisheries into a single fishery. This made it possible to use the available global fisheries data such as production, value of production, and global fisheries profits as inputs to the model.Publication Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2009) World Bank; Food and Agriculture Organization; International Fund for Agricultural DevelopmentThree out of every four poor people in developing countries live in rural areas, and most of them depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods. In many parts of the world, women are the main farmers or producers, but their roles remain largely unrecognized. The 2008 World development report: agriculture for development highlights the vital role of agriculture in sustainable development and its importance in achieving the millennium development goal of halving by 2015 the share of people suffering from extreme poverty and hunger. Climate change and rising food prices are reminders of the need to focus on food security and agriculture for development; and the material presented in the gender in agriculture sourcebook suggests that accounting for the different roles of women and men and gender equality in access to resources and opportunities is a necessary condition for doing so. This sourcebook is a particularly timely resource. It combines descriptive accounts of national and international experience in investing in agriculture with practical operational guidance on to how to design agriculture for development strategies that capitalize effectively on the unique properties of agricultural growth and rural development involving women and men as a high-impact source of poverty reduction. It looks at gender equality and women's empowerment, and the associated principles have the potential to make a difference in the lives of hundreds of millions of rural poor.Publication Forests Sourcebook : Practical Guidance for Sustaining Forests in Development Cooperation(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008) World BankThe Forests Sourcebook is divided into two parts. The first contains an introduction to the book plus seven chapters covering topics associated with enhancing the contribution of forests to poverty reduction, engaging the private sector, meeting the growing demand for forest products, optimizing forest functions at the landscape level, improving forest governance, mainstreaming forest considerations into macro policy dialogue, and monitoring forest sector activities. Each chapter provides relevant background and context with a general overview of the fundamental issues, constraints, policies, and institutional requirements that need to be considered for specific topics. The second part provides guidance for implementing the World Bank's safeguard on forests. This section of the Forests Sourcebook has five chapters. Chapter eighth provides a brief introduction to the World Bank's Forests Policy (OP 4.36). Chapter ninth is on applying OP 4.36. This chapter includes a discussion of the main requirements of OP 4.36, guidelines for implementation (including preparation, appraisal, and supervision requirements), definitions, and guidance on identifying critical forests and critical natural habitats through environmental assessment, which includes a discussion on protecting forests through conservation offsets. Chapter tenth is on consultation and communication in forest projects. Chapters eleventh and twelfth discuss the Forest Certification Assessment Guide and the World Bank's Indigenous Peoples policy, respectively.Publication Sustainable Land Management Sourcebook(Washington, DC, 2008) World BankThis sourcebook is intended to be a ready reference for practitioners (including World Bank stakeholders, clients in borrowing countries, and World Bank project leaders) seeking state-of-the-art information about good land management approaches, innovations for investments, and close monitoring for potential scaling up. This sourcebook is divided into three parts: the first part identifies the need and scope for sustainable land management (SLM) and food production in relation to cross-sector issues such as freshwater and forest resources, regional climate and air quality, and interactions with existing and emerging infectious diseases. It introduces the concept of production landscapes and analysis of trade-offs and establishes a framework for linking indicators that provide a measure of the outcomes of SLM. It then categorizes the diversity of land management (that is, farming) systems globally and the strategies for improving household livelihoods in each type of system. For the farming system types, a set of SLM principles and common but important issues for future investments are identified. The second part of the sourcebook focuses on three major farming system types and presents a range of investment notes and innovative activity profiles. The third part provides users of the source book with easy-to access, web-based resources relevant for land and natural resource managers. The resources are available in the public domain, and readers can access the web sites of various international and national agencies.Publication Enhancing Agricultural Innovation : How to Go Beyond the Strengthening of Research Systems(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007) World BankAgricultural development depends to a great extent on how successfully knowledge is generated and applied. Investments in knowledge, especially in the form of science and technology, have been featured prominently and consistently in most strategies to promote sustainable and equitable agricultural development at the national level. Although many of these investments have been quite successful, the context for agriculture is changing rapidly-sometimes radically-and the process of knowledge generation and use has been transformed as well. It is increasingly recognized that traditional agricultural science and technology investments such as research and extension, although necessary, are not sufficient to enable agricultural innovation. As this paper will demonstrate, new perspectives on the nature of the agricultural innovation process can yield practical approaches to agricultural development that may be more suited to this changing context. This paper includes the following headings: (i) reasons for assessing the value of the innovation systems perspective; (ii) the innovation systems concept - a framework for analysis; (iii) research methodology and case study descriptions; (iv) innovation system capacity - a comparative analysis of case studies; (v) reviewing the innovation systems concept in light of the case studies; (vi) toward a framework for diagnosis and intervention; and (vii) conclusions.Publication Changing the Face of the Waters : The Promise and Challenge of Sustainable Aquaculture(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007) World BankThis study provides strategic orientations and recommendations for Bank client countries and suggests approaches for the Bank's role in a rapidly changing industry with high economic potential. It identifies priorities and options for policy adjustments, catalytic investments, and entry points for the Bank and other investors to foster environmentally friendly, wealth-creating, and sustainable aquaculture. The objectives of the study are to inform and provide guidance on sustainable aquaculture to decision makers in the international development community and in client countries of international finance institutions. The study focuses on several critical issues and challenges: 1) Harnessing the contribution of aquaculture to economic development, including poverty alleviation and wealth creation, to employment and to food security and trade, particularly for least developed countries (LDCs); 2) Building environmentally sustainable aquaculture, including the role of aquaculture in the broader suite of environmental management measures; 3) Creating the enabling conditions for sustainable aquaculture, including the governance, policy, and regulatory frameworks, and identifying the roles of the public and private sectors; and 4) Developing and transferring human and institutional capacity in governance, technologies, and business models with special reference to the application of lessons from Asia to Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.Publication Sustainable Land Management : Challenges, Opportunities, and Trade-offs(Washington, DC: Wolrd Bank, 2006) World BankLand is the integrating component of all livelihoods depending on farm, forest, rangeland, or water (rivers, lakes, coastal marine) habitats. Due to varying political, social, and economic factors, the heavy use of natural resources to supply a rapidly growing global population and economy has resulted in the unintended mismanagement and degradation of land and ecosystems. This book provides strategic focus to the implementation of sustainable land management (SLM) components of the World Bank's development strategies. Sustainable land management is a knowledge-based procedure that integrates land, water, biodiversity, and environmental management to meet rising food and fiber demands while sustaining livelihoods and the environment. This book articulates priorities for investment in sustainable land management and natural resource management and identifies the policy, institutional, and incentive reform options that will accelerate the adoption of productivity improvements and pro-poor growth with sustainable land management.Publication Shaping the Future of Water for Agriculture : A Sourcebook for Investment in Agricultural Water Management(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005) World BankAgricultural water management is a vital practice in ensuring reduction, and environmental protection. After decades of successfully expanding irrigation and improving productivity, farmers and managers face an emerging crisis in the form of poorly performing irrigation schemes, slow modernization, declining investment, constrained water availability, and environmental degradation. More and better investments in agricultural water are needed. In response, the World Bank, in conjunction with many partner agencies, has compiled a selection of good experiences that can guide practitioners in the design of quality investments in agricultural water. The messages of this publication center around the key challenges to agricultural water management, specifically: building policies and incentives; designing institutional reforms; investing in irrigation systems improvement and modernization; investing in groundwater irrigation; investing in drainage and water quality management; investing in water management in rain-fed agriculture; investing in agricultural water management in multipurpose operations; coping with extreme climatic conditions; and assessing the social, economic, and environmental impacts of agricultural water investments.