All publications and documents

23 April 2021, Rome - The world's smallholder farmers produce around a third of the world's food, according to detailed new research by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Five of every six farms in the world consist of less than two hectares, operate only around 12 percent of all agricultural land, and produce roughly 35 percent of the world's food,…

Anthropogenic activity is changing Earth’s climate and ecosystems in ways that are potentially dangerous and disruptive to humans. Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise, ensuring these changes will be felt for centuries beyond 2100, the current benchmark for prediction. Estimating the effects of past, current, and potential future emissions to only 2100 is…

The history of private sector engagement in sustainable development policy and practice is rife with controversy, with countless examples of powerful industry groups and businesses lobbying against progressive regulation. But these are now outnumbered by genuine partners and transformers supporting sustainable development or driving systems change. • Going forward, policymakers should: •…

Land degradation affects a considerable amount of agricultural area around the world, with nearly 2 billion ha estimated to be seriously degraded, in some cases, irreversibly so. Critically, land degradation reduces productivity and food security, disrupts vital ecosystem functions, negatively affects biodiversity and water resources, and increases carbon emissions and vulnerability to climate…

This paper is one of several the Ceres2030 project team are writing on issues that are critical to the realization of SDG 2 but for which there is not enough data to do the issue justice. The Ceres2030 team are not generating new data so much as analyzing and synthesizing existing data. As such, both the cost model and the evidence synthesis are dependent on what is already published. A cost…

Since the commitments and reporting requirements of the SDGs ov erlap significantly with those of the UNFCCC and UNCCD, policy designe rs have mutually reinforcing incentives to advance this SDG commitment. When env ironmental degradation is minimized and restoration efforts are prioritized , ecosystems can sequester and store more carbon and lessen the impact of some c limate change…