On January 22, the FAO launched the 2012 edition of its annual report, “The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) 2012: Investing in Agriculture for a Better Future", in the US. The launch event was hosted by IFPRI, FAO, and the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa and featured speakers from all three institutions.
This year's report focused on agricultural investment and found that, when it comes to reducing poverty and hunger, more is not automatically better. While global investment in agriculture does need to be substantially increased, closer attention needs to be paid to the "what" and the "how" in addition to the "how much" - What programs work best in specific regions? How can farmers be incentivized to invest more in their own farms? How do investments in other sectors such as infrastructure impact agricultural growth?
IFPRI's Director General, Shenggen Fan, provides some take-away messages based on these, and other, questions.