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Rural wages are rising in Asia, and the strongest drivers are demographic changes and the growth of manufacturing.

Last month, hundreds of migrants died near Malta in what the International Organization for Migration (IOM) called the worst shipwreck in years. This year alone, thousands have drowned or gone missing in the Mediterranean trying to cross from the…

Can Africa’s rural economy create enough jobs for predominantly young job-seekers?

The idea that there is a “land grab” taking place in developing nations began with the publication of a report,Seized!, by the NGO Grain. This rang an alarm bell about large-scale land acquisitions – particularly by a number of Asian countries and…

Making people producers of goods is strategic for growth and development.

Although governments and development agencies see farming as an important engine for job creation, rural non-farm businesses do not seem to generate enough work.

Colombia no es la excepción de adquisiciones masivas de tierras en el mundo.

While overcoming dependence is key, abundance of natural resources is not a bad thing in itself.

Foreign direct investment can become a catalyst for modernizing Africa’s low-technology subsistence agriculture if it is placed within a broader national strategy on rural development that gives priority to improving the productivity of local farm…

The disastrous effects of climate events on landscapes can be mitigated by ‘swarm planning’.

In spite of the ongoing euro crisis, which does not leave much space for an ambitious global agenda, the EU remains a major global development actor.

Sudan-South Sudan border disputes remain unsettled, if not increasingly conflictual

Ghana needs to focus more on local production and value addition in order to bring its marginalized citizens on board.  

If we want sustainable management of our natural resources to be part of the post-2015 world, an understanding of the water-energy-food nexus is required.

Africa is gaining increasing global economic importance, but it has to address logistical and policy impediments to fully benefit from it.

Farmers’ organizations spur specialization, increasing employment and income.

African economic transformation should be inclusive, but how can this be achieved? Experts discussed this at the launch of the preview of the 2013 African Transformation Report.

How can we create a more inclusive economy and what obstacles lie in the way? This debate seeks answers.

Halving extreme poverty and hunger is the aim of Millennium Development Goal one. Although this goal is in reach, feeding a growing world population with good quality food remains a major challenge. Especially if you take into account climate chan…

To feed the world’s growing population in a sustainable and inclusive way with good quality food is one of the main tasks for our time. The solution lies partly at the local level: the livelihoods, and the cultural, socioeconomic, and environmenta…

Assuming a joint approach would unleash agricultural potential and strengthen the market, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) have dominated global food security strategies. The debate highlights several strategies, for example, focusing on the loc…

The global land rush has not lifted small-scale farmers out of poverty, nor has it increased agricultural productivity and food security. Speculative land acquisitions often leave fertile land unused, and deprive local communities of vital resources.

The final report of the Tracking Development project concludes that successful development strategies focus on small-scale farmers and give them and small entrepreneurs the freedom and protection to build on a future rather than on industrialisation.

The right approach to solve food insecurity is a holistic approach, because otherwise you are likely to end up with large quantities of food lying around and rotting in the villages. 

Netherlands-African Business Council (NABC) is activating the Dutch private sector for market development and knowledge transfer to local farmers in Africa.

Many small-scale farmers look for opportunities out of agriculture. The only way by doing this without increasing their food insecurity is rural employment. Farmer organisations can help, to spur up specialisation.

Corridors and their use of PPPs do seem to offer a range of opportunities – the challenge is to put in place policies that ensure the benefits are spread more widely.

To combat scarcity, leaders must work together to increase water-use efficiency in agriculture.

The inequality debate should try to find answers to two questions: the issue of definition and measurement, and the means by which to reduce inequality.

The Broker started several online debates on the Agri-Hub Forums in Rwanda and Uganda and on different LinkedIn Groups. Read here the update of what happens on these online platforms.

Tackling inequality in Uganda entails a comprehensive development framework that puts people’s participation in the economic growth process at the centre. People must be viewed as agents of economic growth and transformation and not passive recipi…

In the global water agenda two issues call for urgent global action: the mechanism of carbon taxing and the shortage of phosphate fertilizer.

Some African countries show that agricultural productivity and, thus, economic growth can increase significantly as access to knowledge improves and capacity strengthening activities are promoted, writes Myra Wopereis-Pura.

Fan Shenggen writes about advancing global food and nutrition security through an integrated approach with new players.

There is a need to consider food as human security, says Tim Siegenbeek van Heukelom. Technological problem-solving approach is no panacea as it does not truly address the root causes of hunger. 

This consultation on food security should shed light on who are the key and new actors in the global food security debate and how can they be better included? Does existing knowledge exchange increase innovative capacity?  

Dutch food security policy builds on the expertise and knowledge of an active public and private agri-sector to enhance Dutch and global development through partnership.

The Broker dossier on food security is an interactive platform with the aim of publishing and debating innovative ways to secure good quality food and nutrition. It also identifies new actors in the food security debate and looks at how knowledge…

Experts will debate tough questions on how to feed the world’s population. It shed light on how effectively global knowledge and expertise on food security are being used.

I think the questions that are asked and discussed are based on tacit assumptions about the role of development INGOs – irrespective of whether their work is ‘thick’ or ‘thin’ in its scope – that I have difficulty saying I share.

“Wie niet sterk is moet slim zijn”, dat is volgens mij voor DGIS de kern van het WRR-rapport “Minder pretentie, meer ambitie”. Slim zijn in het omgaan met schaarse middelen, maar ook beseffen hoe een klein en van het buitenland afhankeli…

Centrale vraag van dit debat is: “Hoe zouden de door staatssecretaris Knapen voorgestelde kennisplatforms het best kunnen worden vormgegeven?” Deze vraag richt zich met name op de institutionele vormgeving van de kennisplatforms, waarbij mijns inz…

On Thursday 18 August the FAO had a follow-up Emergency Ministerial-Level Meeting on the deteriorating food situation in the Horn of Africa. Famine has been formally declared in several regions of Somalia, but populations in neighbouring countries…

A very interesting recent study by the Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) looks in detail at which tropical areas of the world will be threatened most by climate change, pinpointing geographical hot…

I take the tattered copy of Wild Swans from my bookcase. A business card from a hostel in Kerala reminds me that I read this during a summer in India in 1994. A year later I joined SOAS in London and was rather awed to learn that Ju…

This blog is about the ‘It’s Down 2 Earth’ conference on agriculture, food security and climate change held in The Hague between 31 October and 5 November 2010.

Editor Evert-jan Quak comments and reflects on new research, publications, blog posts, conferences and current affairs in the field of food security. 

Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest (11th May 2011) reveals new details from a leaked report urging G-20 to tackle food price volatility by reforming biofuel policies, curbing the use of agricultural export restrictions, and rebuilding emergency food…

The global ‘It’s Down 2 Earth’ conference on agriculture, food security and climate change was held in The Hague, the Netherlands, from 31 October to 5 November 2010. The Broker hosted an online discussion blog where participants agreed that agric…

For this special report, The Broker asked Carlos Oya and Pedro A. Sanchez to present their views on the global food crisis. Oya explores the problems of unequal food distribution and market liberalization. He argues that deregulated markets should…

How to solve the growing global food crisis? A drastic shift is needed towards a sustainable, resource-efficient and climate-smart agriculture.

With the World Food Summit in Rome in November and the Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen in early December 2009, climate change and hunger are once again hot topics. Agriculture is at the heart of both. Official delegations, civil society…

The opinion article of the December issue of The Broker notes that approximately 1.5 billion family farmers in the world live by producing food for themselves and for cities. In some regions, a policy emphasis on global markets and high-input agri…

This is the first report of the Broker thesis project. It highlights the theses submitted by four students from Africa. The theses have been reviewed by Meine Pieter van Dijk of the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, the Netherlands;…

Roldan Muradian and Ellen Magnus discuss some of the current entrepreneurial challenges faced by producer organizations, including building strategic alliances with the development and private sectors.