Publications & Documents

Many of the recent concerns about food security relate to perceived threats to current levels of food security, such as those due to price shocks or natural disasters. These threats concern the risk of food insecurity. This publication develops a risk-management tool to examine the robustness of policy responses to managing risks and uncertainty across a variety of different threats to food security, and applies the framework to an Indonesia case study.

Five risk scenarios were selected as major threats to food security in Indonesia, following a consultation process among stakeholders and policy makers, and assessed in terms of existing and alternative agricultural and social policies. The risk assessment shows that domestic economic and natural disaster scenarios are more important than global price hikes and that a policy strategy that concentrates on addressing a single source of risk, such as a price spike in international markets, may increase vulnerability to other sources of risk such as domestic crop failure. The analysis yields a number of specific policy recommendations, including targeting of social assistance programme using food vouchers or cash transfers.

This publication highlights the main conclusions of the Fishing for Development joint meeting, held in Paris in April 2014. The meeting was organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank (WB) to initiate a dialogue between the fisheries and development policy communities from member and partner countries and organizations of the OECD. It brought together delegates to the OECD Fisheries Committee and OECD Development Assistance Committee, representatives of partner developing countries invited by FAO, as well as experts and representatives from FAO, WB, non-governmental organizations and regional organizations. The meeting focused on issues central to promoting sustainable fisheries and aquaculture in developing, emerging and developed countries alike.

This publication also includes the background papers originally prepared to provide context for the issues addressed. It identifies questions for a future work agenda on policy coherence in fisheries and aquaculture, and makes evident the strong need for further dialogue between the fisheries and development communities at global and regional scales.

Knowledge investment supporting the adoption of environmentally friendly farm practices is a key driver behind innovation processes in agriculture, yet impact evaluations and financial assessments of existing initiatives remain scarce despite dramatic changes in orientation, organisation and intervention. This report examines the role, performance and impact of farm advisory services, training and extension initiatives in the OECD area to foster green growth in agriculture. Based on a series of case studies, the report discusses a range of methodological issues and the merits of the different types of providers, and identifies best practices in sustainable agricultural management.