Developing sustainable food security for all has been the key mandate of FAO since its founding. This mandate was reinforced by the World Food Summit in 1996 and its follow up meetings and instruments, such as the Right to Adequate Food. Recognizing that there has been great progress towards this goal in the last 60 years, the 32nd Session of [...]
The multidimensional nature of food security includes food availability, access, stability and utilisation. For each dimension, organic agriculture offers benefits and experiences constraints, as summarised below It is important to keep in mind that, for each of the food security dimensions, the benefits and challenges described will not apply evenly to all organic farming systems, which range from non-certified production [...]
In most countries, organic agriculture has blossomed in response to market demand and despite some government indifference or policies that do not favour it. Small organic farmers face problems related to biased government policies and institutions, which tend to favour larger farmers, such as government research agencies that focus on crops grown by larger farmers, or subsidies to credit for [...]