Sustainable Agricultural Productivity Growth: Small Family Farms

Global agriculture will face multiple challenges over the coming decades. It must produce more food to feed a growing world population.  It must also contribute to overall development and poverty alleviation in many developing countries.

And in case that was not enough to contend with, global agriculture must also confront the issues connected to competition for finite land and water resources, adapt to climate change, and contribute to preserving biodiversity and restoring fragile ecosystems.

Early in 2012 Mexico (as G20 President) invited international organizations to examine practical actions that could be undertaken to sustainably improve agricultural productivity growth, in particular on small family farms.

The preparation of this report, coordinated by the FAO and the OECD, is a collaborative undertaking by Bioversity International, CGIAR Consortium, FAO, IFAD, IFPRI, IICA, OECD, UNCTAD, UN High Level Task Force on the Food Security Crisis, WFP, World Bank, and WTO.

The report invites G20 countries to engage in a medium- to long-term review of policies fostering sustainable productivity growth, beginning with their own food and agriculture sectors.