Agrifood systems (AFS) play a potentially central role in driving economic growth and transformation in low- and middle-income countries.
AFS can encompass the value added in not just primary agriculture but all agrifood-related processing, trade, and transport sectors up and downstream. Expansion of the AFS’s off-farm components is seen as central to the process of agricultural transformation and is strongly associated with economic development.
This page serves as a repository and information hub for materials related to agrifood system measurement, including agrifood system GDP and employment.
Outputs / Resources
James Thurlow
Director, Foresight and Policy Modeling (FPM)
Xinshen Diao
Deputy Division Director, Development Strategy and Governance DivisionKarl Pauw
Senior Research FellowJosee Randriamamonjy
Senior Scientist
Transformation of the agri-food system is a cornerstone of many governments’ national development plans and is key to the One GGIAR goals of contributing to more inclusive agricultural growth, healthier diets, and more sustainable production systems. Agri-food systems remain crucial for the livelihoods and wellbeing of most of the world’s poor, and successful agricultural transformation is still strongly associated with long-term economic development. But adopting an agri-food system perspective is not trivial – it requires us to also look beyond agriculture when prioritizing innovations and policies and tracking outcomes. The agri-food system encompasses not only the primary agricultural sector, but also all upstream and downstream agriculture-related activities. Measuring transformation of the agri-food system therefore requires economywide data and innovative metrics.
Project Nexus SAMs
Project RIAPA Data and Modeling System