Overview publications

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is well situated to scale up its agricultural production in the face of a growing global population and climate change. The region’s sources of comparative advantage lie, in part, in its abundant water and land resources. To succeed in generating the research outputs needed to accelerate agricultural growth, LAC countries need sufficient, sustainable funding for strategic agricultural research programs in alignment with national and regional priorities, combined with talented, well-trained researchers.

This study assesses the patterns of agricultural intensification in 40 African countries looking at the role fertilizer plays in the process. We propose a set of indicators that uses information on available agricultural land and land suitability to measure intensity of land use in agricultural production.

The evidence of improved performance of agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) in recent years has indeed been quite striking when compared with the past. For the first time, the sector has maintained a real growth rate of 3.4 percent per year, well above the population growth rate of 2.5 percent. Despite this improved performance, agricultural productivity growth in SSA continues to lag behind every other region of the world, growing at rates that are roughly half of the average rate of developing countries.

Overall, since the turn of the millennium Asia has recorded rapid growth in its levels of agricultural research spending (excluding the private for-profit sector). Most of the growth in regional spending was driven by just one country: China. In 2013, China invested $9.4 billion purchasing power parity or PPP dollars (in 2011 prices) in agricultural R&D. Spending in India and Indonesia has also increased substantially since the turn of the millennium. These countries rank second and third, spending $3.4 and $1.4 billion PPP dollars in 2014, respectively.

This study analyzes the performance of Latin America and the Caribbean's agriculture between 1980 and 2012 looking at the contribution of inputs, and total factor productivity (TFP) to growth in output per worker. A growth-accounting approach that goes along the lines of neoclassical growth accounting combined with Data Envelopment Analysis, allows us to measure TFP growth using output and input indices and also to decompose this growth into contributions of technical change and changes in technical efficiency.

Given the importance of agriculture in West Africa, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) asked the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF/WECARD) to undertake an in-depth  assessment of agricultural research capacity in the region focusing on key institutional, human resource, and financial resource issues. The assessment is a critical input into the development of national and regional agricultural policy recommendations, which will in turn feed into a regional agricultural research strategy for West Africa.

Countries in West Asia and North Africa (WANA) share a number of common challenges, including rapid population growth, progressive exploitation and exhaustion of water resources, land degradation, and the adverse consequences of climate change. Moreover, lack of political stability constitutes a key barrier to food security and economic development in a large number of countries. Importing roughly half of its food needs, WANA is the most food-import-dependent region of the world.

High population growth, deteriorating soils, climate change, and volatile food prices are major factors affecting food security in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA). To respond effectively to these challenges, agricultural productivity in the region needs to be accelerated without delay.