Sustainable Agricultural Productivity Growth and Bridging the Gap for Small-Family Farms

Abstract

Global agriculture will face multiple challenges over the coming decades. It must produce more food to feed an increasingly affluent and growing world population that will demand a more diverse diet, contribute to overall development and poverty alleviation in many developing countries, confront increased competition for alternative uses of finite land and water resources, adapt to climate change, and contribute to preserving biodiversity and restoring fragile ecosystems. Climate change will bring higher average temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns, and more frequent extreme events, multiplying the threats to sustainable food security. Addressing these challenges requires co-ordinated responses from the public and private sectors and civil society that will need to be adapted to the specific circumstances of different types of farmers in countries at all levels of development. The recommendations provided are broadly of two types: specific actions that can contribute in some way to improving productivity growth or sustainable resource use (whether building on existing initiatives or suggesting new activities) and more general proposals that may not be actionable as presented but that serve to highlight areas for priority attention. This report also invites G20 countries to engage in a medium, to long-term, analysis-based peer review of policies fostering sustainable productivity growth, which would identify specific constraints and opportunities, beginning with their own food and agriculture sectors. In addition to possible benefits to participating countries, a peer review process could contribute to the identification of best policies and best policy packages to achieve the widely held aim of sustainably improving productivity of the global food and agriculture system. While such an initiative is proposed to and for G20 countries, it could have much wider application to interested countries.