As the demand for food increases, agriculture will continue to attract growing investment, particularly in developing countries where investment stocks in agriculture are relatively low. New actors in the sector may be confronted with ethical dilemmas and find it difficult to uphold widely-supported standards of responsible business conduct (RBC), notably in countries with weak governance and insecure land rights.

 
Investors should thus implement due diligence to ensure that their investments are sustainable and bring long-term benefits to home and host countries, especially small-scale farmers and rural communities.

In this context, the OECD and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) are developing a project aimed to help investors identify and avoid infringing widely-supported RBC principles in the agricultural sector.
 

This project is organised around multi-stakeholder consultations which will:

• facilitate the sharing of experiences
• identify and mitigate of the risks faced by investors along agricultural supply chains

A multi-stakeholder advisory group is being established to lead this work and the resulting guidance will assist the National Contact Points of countries adhering to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises to mediate any alleged breaches of the RBC recommendations contained in the Guidelines.

• Breakfast roundtable ‘Responsible investing in Sub-Saharan Africa - What are the challenges facing the development of agribusiness in Sub-Saharan Africa’, at the Agriculture Investment Summit, 27 June 2013, London
  >> download event brochure
   
• Presentation of FAO-OECD work on RBC along agricultural supply chains at the meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group on responsible agricultural investment of the Committee on World Food Security -17 May 2013, Rome, Italy
   

OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises

FAO work on responsible investment

OECD work on international investment

OECD work on agriculture