FAO Publications

Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) - 2019/01/20

Many farmer experiences with new technologies and promising crops stay just that, experiences, and promises. Implementing and scaling up technologies requires evaluation. Here we highlight a resource called the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE), developed by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). FAO is focusing on empowering the creation of sustainable and local food and agriculture systems by encouraing interdependent elements of diverse agricultural systems. Agroecology puts people at the center and respects cultural and food traditions while increasing efficiency and use/reuse of local inputs. Agroecology seeks to use these elements to progress through five levels (according to Gliessman):  

1. Increase the efficiency of industrial and conventional practices to reduce using costly, scarce, or damaging inputs. 
2. Substitute alternatives for industrial/conventional inputs and practices. 
3. Redesign the agroecosystem so that it functions based on ecological processes.
4. Set up a direct connection between those who grow our food and consumers. 
5. On the foundation created by the sustainable farm-scale agroecosystems (3), and the new relationships of sustainability (4), build a new global food system, based on equity, participation, democracy, and justice, that is sustainable, and helps restore and protect earth’s life support systems.

TAPE is a tool that measures the multidimensional performance of agricultural systems at different scales and in different contexts using the ten elements of agroecology. The ten elements of agroecology are: diversity, co-creation and sharing of knowledge, synergies, efficiency, recycling, resilience, human and social values, culture and food traditions, responsible governance, and circular and solidarity economy.

TAPE uses a stepwise approach at the smallholder level and collects information that provides useful results at the larger scale. This tool can be used to evaluate farming systems and projects to bring an agroecological focus to diverse activities across the dimensions of sustainability. FAO designed the tool for ease of use regarding training and data collection. Combined with other agricultural indictators, the tool can be used to provide additional characterizations of land tenure, economics, diet, and women/youth empowerment.

TAPE could help systematize diverse experiences and the different crops that ECHO promotes to ease world hunger and improve livelihoods. For an example of TAPE’s recent applicatoins, FAO and partners used TAPE to evaluate smallholder systems in Kayes, Mali, and found that more agroecologically advanced farming systems improved youth engagement with farming, income from agropastoral practices, dietary diversity, and other production and environmental sustainability indicators (Lucantoni et al., 2023). 

For further information:

FAO’s Agroecology Knowledge Hub
https://www.fao.org/agroecology/knowledge/ 

Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE)
https://www.fao.org/agroecology/tools-tape/ 

Agroecology at FAO
https://www.fao.org/agroecology/home/

Steve Gliessman’s resources 
https://www.uvm.edu/agroecology/stephen-r-gliessman/

Abram Bicksler’s talk entitled “UN Agencies - Friend or Foe?”
http://edn.link/a226ka

Reference

Lucantoni, D., M.R. Sy, M. Goita, M. Veyret-Picot, M. Vicovaro, A. Bicksler, and A. Mottet. 2023. Evidence on the multidimensional performance of agroecology in Mali using TAPE. Agricultural Systems. 204(1–3):103499.

Study on the State of Agriculture in the Caribbean - 2019/01/20

FAO and CDB. 2019. Study on the State of Agriculture in the Caribbean Rome. 212 pp. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO

There is great potential for strengthening market linkages and helping farmers, fishers, and agri-food businesses to catch up with current best practices and technologies. If the region succeeds in fulfilling this potential without further compromising its natural capital and related ecosystem services, agriculture can be an important source of economic growth and a key contributor to poverty reduction, particularly for households that benefit less from growth in other sectors. In addition, through the promotion of inclusive and sustainable agricultural development, the CDB can contribute to overcoming major socio-economic and environmental challenges in the region, including food and nutrition insecurity, obesity, youth unemployment, gender inequality, the unsustainable use of natural resources, and climate change.

This report on the State of Agriculture in the Caribbean supports the development of a new CDB Agricultural Policy and Strategy Paper (APSP), by identifying key trends in agriculture in BMCs, and the related opportunities for investments to promote growth, reduce poverty, and ensure sustainability.

Weather and Desert Locusts - 2016/01/20

Desert Locust plagues can be an important contributing factor to famines and a threat to food security in many regions of the world. The Desert Locust plague of 1986–1989 and subsequent upsurges during the past two decades demonstrate the continuing capacity of this historic pest to threaten agriculture and livelihoods over large parts of Africa, the Near East and SouthWest Asia. In 2004–2005, a major upsurge caused significant crop losses in West Africa, with a negative impact on food security in the region. These events emphasize the need to strengthen and maintain a permanent system of well-organized surveys in areas that have recently received rains or been flooded, supported by a control capability to treat Desert Locust hopper bands and adult swarms efficiently in an environmentally safe and cost-effective manner.

FAO : Pulses - Nutritious seeds for a sustainable future - 2016/01/20

Pulses have been an essential part of the human diet for centuries. Yet their nutritional value is not generally recognized and their consumption is frequently under-appreciated. Undeservedly so, as pulses play a crucial role in healthy diets, sustainable food production and, above all, in food security. This book, Pulses. Nutritious seeds for a Sustainable Future, highlights the benefits of these relatively unknown seeds. Given that pulses come in thousands of varieties, it would be impossible to list them all. Thus, the book focuses on the main families of pulses to whet your appetite. This book illustrates the five main ways in which pulses contribute to food security, nutrition, health, climate change and biodiversity along with an overview of the production and trade in pulses worldwide.

It also takes you on a voyage around the world to demonstrate how pulses are important historically and culturally, as reflected in today's cooking. We are honoured to present ten world-class chefs sharing their secrets of both traditional and tasty pulse dishes. We hope these recipes will entice you to try some or all of them and encourage you to include more pulses in your weekly diet.

The economic lives of smallholder farmers - 2015/01/20

About two-thirds of the developing world’s 3 billion rural people live in about 475 million small farm households, working on land plots smaller than 2 hectares. Many are poor and food insecure and have limited access to markets and services. Their choices are constrained, but they farm their land and produce food for a substantial proportion of the world’s population. Besides farming they have multiple economic activities, often in the informal economy, to contribute towards their small incomes.

These small farms depend predominantly on family labour. In China, nearly 98 percent of farmers cultivate farms smaller than 2 hectares – the country alone accounts for almost half the world’s small farms. In India about 80 percent of farmers are small. In Ethiopia and Egypt, farms smaller than 2 hectares constitute nearly 90 percent of the total number of farms. In Mexico, 50 percent of the farmers are small; in Brazil smallholders make up for 20 percent of the total number of farmers.

The differences in smallholder farms between countries can be significant, and often reflect differences in the stages of development across countries. This is because the evolution of the small farm is intrinsically related to the process of economic development.

FAO Training Manual for Organic Agriculture - 2015/01/20

Edited by Nadia SCIALABBA Climate, Energy and Tenure Division (NRC) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation (FAO)

The goal of organic agriculture is to contribute to the enhancement of sustainability. But what does sustainability mean? In the context of agriculture, sustainability refers to the successful management of agricultural resources to satisfy human needs while at the same time maintaining or enhancing the quality of the environment and conserving natural resources for future generations. Sustainability in organic farming must therefore be seen in a holistic sense, which includes ecological, economic and social aspects.

Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture - 2013/01/20

FAO. 2014. Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Rev. ed. Rome.

Well-managed genebanks both safeguard genetic diversity and make it available to breeders. The Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture lay down the procedures for conserving plant genetic resources.These voluntary Standards set the benchmark for current scientific and technical best practices, and support the key international policy instruments for the conservation and use of plant genetic resources.

Save and Grow: Cassava - A guide to sustainable production intensification - 2013/01/20

The adoption of “Save and Grow” agriculture will require significant improvements in the provision of extension, inputs and production credit to small-scale producers. Moreover, FAO recognizes that improved productivity may not bring about sustainable, long-term development outcomes: a major effort is needed to integrate smallholders into higher levels of value addition. Transforming cassava into a multipurpose subsector that generates income, diversifies economies and ensures food for all will require political commitment, investment, institutional support and a demand-driven approach to technology development.

This guide will be a valuable resource for policymakers in assessing how a dynamic cassava sector can help them to achieve their goals of poverty alleviation, economic development and food security, and of practical use to agricultural researchers, technicians and other professionals in preparing programmes for sustainable cassava production intensification.

Cassava - A Guide to Sustainable Production Intensification - 2013/01/20

Cassava is a tropical root crop, originally from Amazonia, that provides the staple food of an estimated 800 million people worldwide. Grown almost exclusively by low-income, smallholder farmers, it is one of the few staple crops that can be produced efficiently on a small scale, without the need for mechanization or purchased inputs, and in marginal areas with poor soils and unpredictable rainfall.

Since 2000, the world’s annual cassava production has increased by an estimated 100 million tonnes, driven in Asia by demand for dried cassava and starch for use in livestock feed and industrial applications, and in Africa by expanding urban markets for cassava food products. There is great potential for further production increases – under optimal conditions, cassava yields can reach 80 tonnes per hectare, compared to the current world average yield of just 12.8 tonnes.

Booming demand offers millions of cassava growers in tropical countries the opportunity to intensify production, earn higher incomes and boost the food supply where it is most needed. But how smallholder cassava growers choose to improve productivity should be of major concern to policymakers. The Green Revolution in cereal production, based on genetically uniform varieties and intensive use of irrigation and agrochemicals, has taken a heavy toll on agriculture’s natural resource base, jeopardizing future productivity. In moving from traditional, low-input to more intensive cultivation, small-scale cassava growers should not make the same mistakes.

Good Emergency Management Practice : The Essentials - 2011/01/20

A guide to preparing for animal health emergencies
Nick Honhold, Ian Douglas, William Geering,
Arnon Shimshoni, Juan Lubroth

An animal disease emergency, such as an outbreak of a transboundary animal disease (TAD), can have serious socio-economic consequences which, at their extreme, may affect the national economy. If a new disease can be recognized quickly while it is still localized, and if prompt action is taken to contain and then progressively eliminate it, the chances of eradication of the disease are markedly enhanced. Conversely, eradication may be extremely difficult and costly, or even impossible, if the disease is not recognized and appropriate control action is not taken until the disease is widespread or has become established in domestic animals or wildlife.

Planning for emergency disease eradication or control programmes cannot be left until a disease outbreak has occurred. At that point, there will be intense pressure from politicians and livestock farmer groups for immediate action. In such a climate, mistakes will be made, resources will be misused, deficiencies will be rapidly amplified and highlighted. Delays will result in further spread of the disease and higher costs. If there is inadequate advance planning, national animal health services will face a disease emergency with poor training and little or no previous experience. These severe problems can be avoided if there is adequate advance planning and preparation.