Food security in Africa needs abundant, affordable and nutritious food for the growing population.
•Smallholder farmers lack sufficient land or economic incentives to invest in agriculture.
•The above issues create a ‘wicked problem’ – a conundrum for future food security.

The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets presents commodity market issues in an objective and accessible way to policy-makers, commodity market observers and stakeholders interested in agricultural commodity market developments and their impacts on countries at different levels of economic development.

Land has many uses. It provides water, food and energy. It is used to create wealth and employment and grow economies. And it provides other, often less obvious and tangible, services such as conserving biodiversity, storing carbon, purifying and storing water. It even regulates the Earth’s climate, for instance, by absorbing the heat from the sun. All of its uses are undermined and destroyed when land is degraded. Degrading the land disrupts these functions and leads to severe food, water and energy shortages.

Land degradation refers to any reduction or loss in the biological or economic productive capacity of the land resource base. It is generally caused by human activities, exacerbated by natural processes, and often magnified by and closely intertwined with climate change and biodiversity loss. SLM practices include the integrated management of crops (trees), livestock, soil, water, nutrients, biodiversity, disease and pests to optimize the delivery of a range of ecosystem services. The overall objective is to maximize provisioning services (e.g.

Suboptimal land management practices are degrading soils and undermining food production. Sustainable land management (SLM) practices can improve soil and enhance yields.

The deterioration of land resources in the world's arid and semi-arid regions is one of the gravest problems facing our planet and its people. Desertification, broadly defined, is one of the principal barriers to sustainable food security and sustainable livelihoods in our world today. It is not a future global threat; it is a devastating day-to-day local reality.

As of 2017, SGP has awarded over 3,800 small grants to land degradation projects in over 120 countries, many of which are in regions with extreme levels of poverty and food insecurity across Africa and Latin America. Africa, in particular, is experiencing the highest population growth of the developing world, while being exposed and vulnerable to the rising impact from climate change.

Este documento resume las propuestas de 75 personas, 50 mujeres y 25 hombres, representantes de organizaciones de la agricultura familiar, organizaciones campesinas e indígenas, movimientos por la agroecología, organismos de Naciones Unidas, ONG locales e internacionales; organizaciones de zonas urbanas y rurales, y universidades.

El presente informe sistematiza los resultados del Diálogo Independiente Regional llevado a cabo el 12 de mayo para recoger aportes de diversos actores para la Cumbre de la ONU sobre los Sistemas Alimentarios 2021, con el objetivo de que la comunidad vinculada al tema de la tierra haga llegar su voz a este importante espacio.

Este documento se presenta como aporte de la FAO en Colombia a través del Proyecto Gobernanza y Paz, que cuenta con el apoyo de la Embajada de Italia y la Agencia Italiana de Cooperación para el Desarrollo.

Esta publicación de la serie “Historias de éxito (Success Stories)” presenta las buenas prácticas en materia de tenencia de la tierra realizadas en Colombia a través de la aplicación de las VGGT por algunos proyectos de la FAO entre el 2014 y el 2021, especialmente en el contexto de mejora de la gobernanza y reducción de conflictos en áreas protegidas, fortalecimiento de las comunidades en tema de sus derechos de tenencia de la tierra y restitución de derechos territoriales de las comunidades indígenas y/o afrodescendientes.