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Brochure, flyer, fact-sheetBrochureThe 10 elements of agroecology
Guiding the transition to sustainable food and agricultural systems
2018Today’s food and agricultural systems have succeeded in supplying large volumes of food to global markets. However, high-external input, resource-intensive agricultural systems have caused massive deforestation, water scarcities, biodiversity loss, soil depletion and high levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Despite significant progress in recent times, hunger and extreme poverty persist as critical global challenges. Even where poverty has been reduced, pervasive inequalities remain, hindering poverty eradication. Integral to FAO’s Common Vision for Sustainable Food and Agriculture, agroecology is a key part of the global response to this climate of instability, offering a unique approach to meeting significant increases in our food needs of the future while ensuring no one is left behind. Agroecology is an integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social concepts and principles to the design and management of food and agricultural systems. It seeks to optimize the interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment while taking into consideration the social aspects that need to be addressed for a sustainable and fair food system. Agroecology is not a new invention. It can be identified in scientific literature since the 1920s, and has found expression in family farmers’ practices, in grassroots social movements for sustainability and the public policies of various countries around the world. More recently, agroecology has entered the discourse of international and UN institutions. -
Book (series)Working paperTrue cost accounting applications for agrifood systems policymakers
Background paper for The State of Food and Agriculture 2023
2023Also available in:
No results found.This background paper to The State of Food and Agriculture 2023 introduces true cost accounting (TCA) as an approach to measure and value the costs and benefits generated by agrifood systems in order to facilitate improved decision-making. The paper is based on a systematic review of existing TCA approaches and of relevant case studies in agrifood systems. Guidance on conducting TCA is provided, especially in relation to data collection. The paper ends with a discussion on scaling and harmonizing TCA for agrifood systems transformation. Based on a systematic literature review, the paper describes seven TCA approaches and identifies nine case studies deemed most relevant to policymakers in agrifood systems. It then proceeds to describe the different stages and steps needed to undergo a TCA study, such as: setting the boundaries of their assessment; determining the materiality of indicators; and estimating data points that are not readily available. The latter is particularly important given that a lack of (robust) data at low cost is potentially the main barrier to applying and scaling up TCA, especially in middle- and low-income countries. Because a TCA study requires a substantial amount of data to be collected, it is important to start with the data that are available and use this to determine which data points are crucial to answering a given policy question, to then focus on refining the available data points and filling in missing data points that are essential to the analysis. Another important bottleneck to scaling up TCA is the issue of harmonization, which the paper argues is impeded by the number of approaches available. As future steps for scaling up TCA, harmonization by integrating methodologies and adopting shared principles, ideas and requirements, is thus recommended. -