Sustainable agriculture plays a crucial role in improving food security and reducing poverty and hunger around the world, especially in Africa.  As the globe transitions to an integrated bio-economy, the need to ensure food security becomes more urgent.

These issues will be addressed at the upcoming 28th International Conference on Agricultural Economics on August 18-24, 2012 in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. This year the theme is “global bio-economy”. The conference organized by the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) once every three years will bring together the leading economists from around the world to discuss the emerging challenges in global economy.

Three papers from ReSAKSS researchers will be presented at this meeting. One paper analyzed the opportunities on intra-regional trade in food staples in the COMESA region. The authors of the paper recommended a regional approach to enhance food security and agricultural growth in the region. An open cross border trade will lead to a win-win situation for both food surplus and food deficit areas –the countries/regions that export staples will get benefits from selling food to a new market, while the states facing food shortages will solve the crisis and avoid the high and volatile food prices.

The second paper examined the role of the livestock sector in increasing GDP and improving food security in Ethiopia. The livestock sector in the country contributes significantly to the overall economic growth and provides lots of employment opportunities for poor people, but its importance is often neglected by policymakers and researchers. By extending an existing dynamic CGE model developed for examining policy priorities in the agricultural sector, the study found out that increasing livestock productivity would generate a rapid economic growth; more investments in the livestock sector will generate a higher economic return.

Another selected paper prepared for the conference found that participation in forest community associations could improve the farm forest development in Kenya. By investigating in Kakamega, a town in western Kenya, the researcher discovered that the direct effect of households participating in community forest associations (CFA) is that more household land gets devoted to farm forestry.

More information about the conference is available on the conference website.