BACKGROUND
The global food system today is beset by serious challenges and risks. Food demand is on the rise due to population growth and changing consumption patterns; production and prices have become more volatile; hunger and poverty levels remain high and unsustainable practices exacerbate environmental challenges.
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The fundamental needs to boost productivity, especially of small to medium holders, increase access to markets, reduce risks, boost rural employment, and provide environmental services come in a context where managing the agriculture, livestock and aquaculture practices is challenged by accelerating climate change, population growth, urbanization, environmental degradation, increased market risk, tightening resource constraints, a growing need for engagement of the private sector in delivering public goods, too-slow progress on raising rural incomes, and too-slow progress on improving nutrition. World food production needs to be multifold in the coming decades, with far fewer resources (land, water, farmers, energy) available than today. Sustainable agricultural production in developing countries is facing ever-increasing challenges from high use rate of synthetic fertilizers, over-reliance on pesticides, very low adoption of biological pest control, low use rate of animal and green manure, and low level of farm diversification. Similarly, food safety is receiving heightened attention worldwide as the important links between food and health are increasingly recognized. Improving food safety is an essential element of improving food security, which exists when populations have access to sufficient and healthy food. At the same time, as food trade expands throughout the world, food safety has become a shared concern among both developed and developing countries.
