Trends in employment in Agrifood Systems: Innovations, Interventions, and Policies

The food sector constitutes about one-fifth of the global economy and is arguably the world's largest source of income and employment. In recent decades, agricultural productivity has steadily grown, and technological and institutional innovations have proliferated within agrifood markets and value chains. However, because of deficiencies in infrastructure, equipment, and standards; incentives that do not foster sustainability, and nutrition; concentrated market power; and weak value-chain integration, the ways in which food markets operate have negative impacts.To improve the ability of agrifood systems to increase employment, reduce poverty and use resources sustainably will involve combining technical and organizational innovations with enabling market incentives, institutional and regulatory frameworks, and public policy.

To address a critical part of the above challenge, the CGIAR Rethinking Food Markets Initiative commissioned a meta-study to review the available evidence on ways to enhance employment and income generation in the Agrifood Value Chain (AVC).

This event explored the results of the meta-study.  We heard from the authors on the key messages of the report and understood the state of play in terms of the available evidence and identified knowledge gaps regarding the impacts on employment and income sharing in agrifood value chain (AVC) integration and modernization processes in developing countries.  We also had the chance to discuss the implications of the findings of the report with external experts on the different dimensions of employment in agrifood value chains.

A live forum on the topic is running on the event. Access here to submit your reflections, questions and start interacting with other stakeholders.