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The State of Food and Agriculture 2023

Revealing the true cost of food to transform agrifood systems












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FAO. 2023. The State of Food and Agriculture 2023. Revealing the true cost of food to transform agrifood systems. Rome.




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    Booklet
    In Brief to The State of Food and Agriculture 2023
    Revealing the true cost of food to transform agrifood systems
    2023
    The In Brief version of the FAO flagship publication, The State of Food and Agriculture 2023, contains the key messages and main points from the publication and is aimed at the media, policymakers and more general public.
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    Booklet
    In Brief to The State of Food and Agriculture 2024
    Value-driven transformation of agrifood systems
    2024
    Uncovering the true cost of food is the first step in making agrifood systems more inclusive, resilient and sustainable. As The State of Food and Agriculture 2023 revealed, agrifood systems activities generate significant benefits for society, but also have negative impacts on economic, social and environmental sustainability. The quantified hidden costs of agrifood systems amount to around 10 percent of global gross domestic product. Therefore, strategic action is necessary, and all agrifood systems actors – from producers and agribusinesses to consumers and governments – have a crucial role to play. While transforming agrifood systems would yield a net global gain, the benefits and costs would be unevenly distributed among stakeholders and countries over time. The State of Food and Agriculture 2024 builds on the findings of the 2023 edition, delving deeper into the use of true cost accounting assessments of agrifood systems and identifying policy interventions aimed at transformation. Using updated global datasets, the report confirms previous estimates of the quantified hidden costs of agrifood systems and provides a detailed breakdown of the hidden costs associated with unhealthy dietary patterns and non-communicable diseases for 156 countries. These findings are analysed through the lens of six agrifood systems categories to take into account various outcomes and hidden costs that require different policy interventions. Case studies offering in-depth assessments of country, local and value chain contexts illustrate the economic, social and environmental impacts of current practices to guide policy interventions. Crucial to all contexts is the need for inclusive stakeholder consultations to inform interventions and reconcile power imbalances and trade-offs.
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    True cost accounting applications for agrifood systems policymakers
    Background paper for The State of Food and Agriculture 2023
    2023
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    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.

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