Agriculture
News
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.
EU parliament committee approves farm subsidy reforms
The European Parliament’s agriculture committee approved a deal to overhaul the European Union’s huge farming subsidies, including new measures aimed at making agriculture greener.
Reports
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.
Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2021 (OECD)
This year’s report focuses on policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and analyses the implications of agricultural support policies for the performance of food systems.
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
