Agriculture
News
Budgeting for Sustainable Development – GFPN – University of Oxford COP26 side-event
How can fiscal policy support socio-economic development, and the environment? Join H.E. Minister Lee White of Gabon to explore new practical methods for understanding potential policy impacts during budget planning.
Land grab: How agri-subsidies encourage Irish farmers to cut back on nature
Irish farmers continue to see annual payments penalised for maintaining biodiversity hotspots despite concerns raised by the State over the climate and biodiversity crises.
90% of global farm subsidies damage people and planet, says UN
Almost 90% of the $540bn in global subsidies given to farmers every year are “harmful”, a startling UN report has found. This agricultural support damages people’s health, fuels the climate crisis, destroys nature and drives inequality by excluding smallholder farmers, many of whom are women, according to the UN agencies.
Reports
Repurposing Agricultural Policies and Support : Options to Transform Agriculture and Food Systems to Better Serve the Health of People, Economies, and the Planet (World Bank)
The World Bank report finds that repurposing a portion of government spending on agriculture each year to develop and disseminate more emission-efficient technologies for crops and livestock could reduce overall
A multi-billion-dollar opportunity – Repurposing agricultural support to transform food systems (UNEP, FAO, UNDP)
Public support mechanisms for agriculture in many cases hinder the transformation towards healthier, more sustainable, equitable, and efficient food systems, thus actively steering us away from meeting the Sustainable Development Goals and targets of the Paris Agreement.
Repurposing Agricultural Subsidies to Restore Degraded Farmland and Grow Rural Prosperity (WRI)
This report highlights why governments should reinvest underperforming public agricultural subsidies in land restoration.
Policy Briefs
Food Finance Architecture: Financing a Healthy, Equitable and Sustainable Food System
Today’s food systems generate $12 trillion in hidden social, economic, and environmental costs. It prioritizes volume over nutritional value, fails to pay a living wage while creating sizeable profits for a concentrated set of players, and treats the natural environment as an infinite resource – resulting in massive waste and undermining the stability of the entire food system and global economy.
Fiscal policies to support sustainable agriculture (UNEP, 2019)
This policy brief explores the role of fiscal policies in creating an enabling framework for a more sustainable agriculture and food production system. The main arguments–illustrated through country examples–point to
