What's New

The Food Security Portal E-learning Platform has launched two new courses: the French version of the Pro-WEAI (Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index) Foundations Module and a brand-new course focused on training Farmer Business School facilitators.

Over the past three decades, contract farming has grown in popularity with policymakers and development practitioners throughout low- and middle-income countries. Under contract farming schemes, farmers and buyers enter into preharvest agreements regarding the production and sale of agricultural goods. Farmers are thus assured they will have a buyer for their product, and traders and retailers are guaranteed a supply of saleable goods.

Accurate and precise monitoring of agricultural output in developing countries is a crucial tool for the proper allocation of public funds and services, in addressing poverty, and in sustainably increasing yields to feed growing populations. But accurate crop yield estimation is particularly challenging in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where heterogeneous smallholder farms predominate, making data collection expensive and often subject to systemic bias.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has imperiled global food security—creating suffering within Ukraine and displacing millions, while disrupting agricultural production and trade from one of the world's major exporting regions. The latter threatens to drive rising food prices still higher and create scarcity, especially for regions most dependent on exports from Russia and Ukraine—particularly the Middle East and North Africa.

The unfolding crisis in Ukraine has roiled commodity markets and threatens global food security. Ongoing fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors have already driven up food prices. Poor harvests in South America, strong global demand, and supply chain issues have reduced grain and oilseed inventories and driven prices to their highest levels since 2011-2013.