The marine ecosystem food chain can be described in its simplest form as plankton eaten by fish and the fish eaten by whales. We can visualize this as a food pyramid in which the fewer top level organisms are supported by a larger number of food organisms. With the moratorium on commercial whaling protecting even abundant whale species, if their abundance continues to increase, the top layer al…
The World Trade Statistical Review 2023 presents recent trends in international trade at a time of geopolitical and macroeconomic strains and technological challenges affecting the global economy and supply chains. The data cover merchandise and services trade broken down by geographical origin, main product groups and sectors, along with related data on key economic developments such as GDP gr…
This brief provides a rigorous and standardized approach for value chain analysis and design (VCA/D).1 It assumes that a specific value chain (VC) has already been selected and describes how to complete the first two steps for its sustainable evelopment, namely analysing the VC and designing an upgrading strategy and development plan for it.2 The next step, beyond this brief, is the implementat…
Only with knowledge can we free the world from hunger, malnutrition and poverty. According to the Basic Texts of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Organization’s first function is to “collect, analyse, interpret and disseminate information relating to nutrition, food and agriculture”. FAO’s strategic focus on “the four betters” – better product…
Disasters are resulting in unprecedented levels of destruction across the world. These shocks and disruptions affect the functioning and sustainability of agricultural production and threaten the livelihoods of millions of people reliant on agrifood systems. Reducing the impact of disasters in agriculture requires a better understanding of the extent to which these events produce negative im…
Rice is cultivated in tropical Asia (South and Southeast Asia) over an area of about 88.7 million ha, with an annual total production of nearly 183.8 million tons of rough rice, an average productivity of 2.7 t/ha (Table 1). Only 14% of the rice area in tropical Asia supports 2 crops of rice per year under irrigation. The remaining riceland is entirely rainfed, with varying water regimes. In ar…