Addressing off-farm impediments to global food security

The riskiness of agricultural production has been increasing this century, but so too have global market and policy uncertainties faced by farmers, agribusinesses and agrifood traders. In addition to short-term geopolitical contributors to which producers in the agrifood system have to become more resilient, there are long-term concerns with climate change (CC) and biodiversity loss and the responses of various governments and international agencies to those concerns. Farmers are among the worst-affected producers but are also significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity losses. Adapting to global warming and more-extreme weather events, and to new policies aimed at mitigating CC, is challenging many farmers, while some other farmers will see new opportunities such as being paid to contribute to CC mitigation. Better outcomes, in terms of reductions in global food insecurity, malnutrition, CC, biodiversity loss and extreme poverty, require policy reforms in at least three areas: (i) less government intervention in national markets for agrifood products and purchased farm inputs, to ensure better use of the world’s agricultural resources, (ii) more-widespread taxing of greenhouse gas emissions, and (iii) better markets for and policies affecting the services of natural capital so as to generate more (and more-appropriate) public investments in agricultural research and rural infrastructure in developing countries, and more public-private collaboration to up-scale innovations pertinent to the needs of farmers and agribusinesses there.