Agricultural credit is an important instrument for improving farm productivity, the welfare of farm households, and their resilience to weather-related shocks.

The performance of agrifood value chains of vital importance for smallholder farmers in developing countries.

Managing the policy tensions among higher productivity, rising demand, and deforestation to avoid biodiversity losses and increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Effects of El Niño on domestic production are already apparent in many regions of the world. Policy actions are needed to ensure adequate food supply and food mobility from surplus to deficit regions

The African Risk Capacity (ARC) pool is a proposed pan-Africa drought risk pool that would insure against drought risk in Africa south of the Sahara. Donors and, to at least a notional extent, member countries would pay annual premiums.

In 2000, the member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) signaled their commitment to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger and poverty by 2015 (MDG1).

The 2007-08 international food price crisis caused hardship on a number of fronts. The steep rise in food prices led to economic difficulties for the poor and generated political turmoil in many countries.

The current food crisis has several causes-rising demand for food and feed, biofuels, high oil prices, climate change, stagnant agricultural productivity growth-but there is increasing evidence that the crisis is being made worse by the malfunctio