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In the inter-connected world of food security, partnerships – among countries, regions, and development organizations – can play a critical role in achieving research- and evidence-based policies to increase the resilience of global food systems and to improve food and nutrition security for all. In this light, since 2014, IFPRI has held a series of food policy dialogues in Africa south of the Sahara, in collaboration with various regional partners as part of the Food Security Portal project.

Contract farming has become a popular way to integrate smallholder farmers into modern, high-value markets; however, poorly designed contracts may create additional risks for farmers and even subject them to abuses by larger agricultural players. In July, the FAO, along with UNIDROIT and IFAD, released a Legal Guide on Contract Farming , a comprehensive guide to establishing sound, transparent agricultural contracts between growers and buyers.

Since the 2007-2008 global food crisis, foreign land acquisitions, or “land grabs,” have exploded in number. In 2014, Land Matrix estimated that a total of 950 land deals were in effect in various stages throughout the world, often in countries with poor land governance and high levels of food insecurity. While foreign land acquisition does have the potential to increase essential investment into agriculture in poor developing countries, it also poses a risk to local populations, who may face a loss in access to and control over land.

In the 1960s, Ghana was the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans; while the country’s cocoa crop took a hit in the 1980s as a result of rampant bushfires, it has since rebounded and is now the second largest producer of cocoa beans in the world. The majority of the raw beans grown in Ghana are not processed within the country, however, and the government has been putting more emphasis in recent years on promoting industrialization of the domestic cocoa value chain by subsidizing the price paid for beans by local cocoa bean processors.

African governments need to establish policies and infrastructure to increase fertilizer access and use, concluded a roundtable meeting between IFPRI and the African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP), held in Johannesburg in July. Participants agreed that increasing the use of fertilizers is critical in expanding sustainable agricultural production in the region and is in line with the goals of the 2006 Abuja Declaration regarding the use of fertilizers to stimulate a “green revolution” in Africa.