agriculture essay 2020

The Future of Farming: Artificial Intelligence and Agriculture

While artificial intelligence (AI) seemed until recently to be science fiction, countless corporations across the globe are now researching ways to implement this technology in everyday life. AI works by processing large quantities of data, interpreting patterns in that data, and then translating these interpretations into actions that resemble those of a human being. Scientists have used it to develop self-driving cars and chess-playing computers, but the technology has expanded into another domain: agriculture. AI has the potential to spur more efficient methods of farming in order to combat global warming, but only with expanded regulation of its development.

Global Warming and Agriculture: A Vicious Cycle

Global warming continues to threaten every aspect of our everyday lives, including crop production. It will reduce the soil moisture in areas close to the equator while leaving northern countries virtually unscathed, according to a study from Wageningen University. We are already seeing the impact of these modified growing conditions on our food production in the form of lower crop yields .

Reduced food production has an especially devastating impact on developing countries. Climate change causes the loss of 35 trillion consumable food calories per year and harms poorer countries who do not have the money to import food. The result is growing food insecurity. And rising sea levels only compound the problem. By the year 2100, sea levels are expected to rise by one meter, which will have a detrimental impact on growers on the coasts whose crops cannot survive in areas where the water is too salty.

However, agriculture is not just a victim of global warming, but also a cause. Agriculture is part of a vicious cycle in which farming leads to global warming, which in turn devastates agricultural production. The process of clearing land for agriculture results in widespread deforestation and contributes to 40 percent of global methane production. Therefore, to confront climate change, it is necessary to ensure reforestation—but how? What is the path to efficient, environmentally-conscious farming?

The Benefits of AI for Environmentally-Conscious Agriculture

This is where AI enters the scene. Farmers use AI for methods such as precision agriculture ; they can monitor crop moisture, soil composition, and temperature in growing areas, enabling farmers to increase their yields by learning how to take care of their crops and determine the ideal amount of water or fertilizer to use.

Furthermore, this technology may have the capacity to reduce deforestation by allowing humans to grow food in urban areas. One Israeli tech company used AI algorithms that create optimal light and water conditions to grow crops in a container small enough to be stored inside a  home. The technology could be especially beneficial for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, where much of the population lives in cities. Furthermore, the ability to grow food in pre-existing urban areas suggests that humans could become less dependent on deforestation for food production.

Additionally, AI can help locate and therefore protect carbon sinks , forest areas that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Otherwise, continued efforts to clear these forests will release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Furthermore, some AI is being developed that can find and target weeds in a field with the appropriate amount of herbicide, eliminating the need for farmers to spread chemicals across entire fields and pollute the surrounding ecosystem. Some countries are already implementing AI into their agricultural  methods. Some farmers in Argentina are already using digital agriculture; there are already AI farms in China .

AI can also be used to curb global warming outside of agriculture. The technology can be used to monitor how efficiently buildings are using energy and monitor urban heat islands. Urban heat islands are first created when urban building materials like concrete and asphalt absorb heat, causing cities to grow hotter than the rest of their surroundings. People then rely more heavily on air conditioning throughout the day in order to stay cool, and the energy used for these services results in greater greenhouse gas emissions. Providing information about the location of these islands could help politicians determine what policies they should adopt to reduce emissions and encourage more efficient and environmentally-conscious city planning.

The Risks of AI

Nonetheless, AI is far from a silver bullet—it could actually contribute to global warming. Due to the large amount of data that AI needs to process, training a single AI releases five times the emissions that an average car would emit during its lifetime, thereby adding to the already substantial environmental impact of computing technology. Data storage and processing centers that deliver digital services like entertainment and cloud computing are already responsible for two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, a number comparable to the overall percentage of pollution contributed by the aviation industry. Although this statistic may not seem overwhelming, it does suggest that the environmental costs of AI will need to be reduced before expanding the technology on a global scale. Some researchers are already working on developing a standard metric that researchers can use to compare how efficient their particular AI systems might be, ultimately encouraging innovators to create environmentally-friendly data-processing.

Further, securing access to AI on a global scale may pose some challenges. Countries will both need experts in the field who can successfully use the technology and internet connection, neither of which are always readily available. Therefore, in order for developing countries to take advantage of the benefits of AI and improve their food security, there will need to be a focus on developing the infrastructure necessary for internet access and teaching professionals how to use the technology. Additionally, AI can be expensive . Farmers might go into debt and will not be able to maintain the technology on their own as it suffers everyday wear-and-tear. Those unable to secure access to the technology will lose out to larger farms that can implement AI on a wide scale.

But farm owners themselves will not be the only ones faced with new pressures as a result of AI. New technologies will render many agricultural jobs obsolete as machines are able to accomplish the same tasks as humans. For example, China has created a seven-year pilot program that uses robots instead of humans to run farms. This program does not bode well for the future of jobs in agriculture: many of China’s 250 million farmers could lose their jobs due to increased automation.

Some may argue that the rise of automated jobs is not as threatening as it may seem, especially given the US agricultural labor shortage . However, the situation is not necessarily the same in other countries. Many countries in the Global South remain dependent on the agricultural sector because there are few job opportunities in urban areas. But if farmers can produce more food at a faster rate with machines, they will have an incentive to shift away from hiring humans, placing the livelihoods of many families at risk. Even if farmworkers do not lose their jobs, their wages could decline as they appear less efficient compared to their robot competitors. The result is chronic poverty and inequality.

Looking Forward: The Next Steps for AI in Agriculture

Given these concerns, AI cannot be the only response to climate change. These types of adaptive technologies can mitigate the consequences of climate change, but more sweeping measures are necessary to secure global access to food in the face of rising temperatures. If countries are to develop AI for use in agricultural sectors, global leaders must consider the potential costs, the role of legal institutions, and the environmental consequences of data processing before investing in the technology on a broader scale.

Sydney Young

Sydney is the former Director of Interviews and Perspectives at the HIR. She is interested in health, human rights, and social justice issues.

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Essay on Agriculture for Students and Children

500+ words essay on agriculture.

Agriculture is one of the major sectors of the Indian economy. It is present in the country for thousands of years. Over the years it has developed and the use of new technologies and equipment replaced almost all the traditional methods of farming. Besides, in India, there are still some small farmers that use the old traditional methods of agriculture because they lack the resources to use modern methods. Furthermore, this is the only sector that contributed to the growth of not only itself but also of the other sector of the country.

Growth and Development of the Agriculture Sector

India largely depends on the agriculture sector. Besides, agriculture is not just a mean of livelihood but a way of living life in India. Moreover, the government is continuously making efforts to develop this sector as the whole nation depends on it for food.

For thousands of years, we are practicing agriculture but still, it remained underdeveloped for a long time. Moreover, after independence, we use to import food grains from other countries to fulfill our demand. But, after the green revolution, we become self-sufficient and started exporting our surplus to other countries.

Besides, these earlier we use to depend completely on monsoon for the cultivation of food grains but now we have constructed dams, canals, tube-wells, and pump-sets. Also, we now have a better variety of fertilizers, pesticides, and seeds, which help us to grow more food in comparison to what we produce during old times.

With the advancement of technology, advanced equipment, better irrigation facility and the specialized knowledge of agriculture started improving.

Furthermore, our agriculture sector has grown stronger than many countries and we are the largest exporter of many food grains.

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Significance of Agriculture

It is not wrong to say that the food we eat is the gift of agriculture activities and Indian farmers who work their sweat to provide us this food.

In addition, the agricultural sector is one of the major contributors to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and national income of the country.

Also, it requires a large labor force and employees around 80% of the total employed people. The agriculture sector not only employees directly but also indirectly.

Moreover, agriculture forms around 70% of our total exports. The main export items are tea, cotton, textiles, tobacco, sugar, jute products, spices, rice, and many other items.

Negative Impacts of Agriculture

Although agriculture is very beneficial for the economy and the people there are some negative impacts too. These impacts are harmful to both environments as the people involved in this sector.

Deforestation is the first negative impact of agriculture as many forests have been cut downed to turn them into agricultural land. Also, the use of river water for irrigation causes many small rivers and ponds to dry off which disturb the natural habitat.

Moreover, most of the chemical fertilizers and pesticides contaminate the land as well as water bodies nearby. Ultimately it leads to topsoil depletion and contamination of groundwater.

In conclusion, Agriculture has given so much to society. But it has its own pros and cons that we can’t overlook. Furthermore, the government is doing his every bit to help in the growth and development of agriculture; still, it needs to do something for the negative impacts of agriculture. To save the environment and the people involved in it.

FAQs about Essay on Agriculture

Q.1 Name the four types of agriculture? A.1 The four types of agriculture are nomadic herding, shifting cultivation, commercial plantation, and intensive subsistence farming.

Q.2 What are the components of the agriculture revolution? A.2 The agriculture revolution has five components namely, machinery, land under cultivation, fertilizers, and pesticides, irrigation, and high-yielding variety of seeds.

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5 Key Issues in Agriculture in 2021

Photo Credit: Maria Fleischmann/World Bank

As 2021 ends, we take a retrospective look at five topics that were covered in our analytical work this year. These issues represent just a fragment of the Bank's work, but they are key to reducing poverty and hunger while slowing climate change.

Food Security

Like the previous year, news in agriculture and food in 2021 was dominated by deteriorating food security. Approximately 30 percent of the world’s population lacked access to adequate food in 2020 and into 2021.

The World Bank took action to fight food insecurity around the world, providing immediate aid to vulnerable households and more long-term support to farmers in the form of seeds, fertilizer, and other agricultural inputs.

COVID-19 also pushed more people into poverty and made the poor poorer around the world. This, along with supply chain interruptions and rising prices had a major impact on hunger. To learn more about these impacts, read this brief compiled by the Bank and updated at least once a month.

Our new podcast series, Table for 10 Billion , launched in March examined the causes of growing hunger and offered some surprising answers.

Farming Insects for Food and Feed

This December, the Bank released a ground-breaking report looking at the valuable role farming insects can play in both food security and climate-smart agriculture, Insect and Hydroponic Farming in Africa: The New Circular Food Economy .

While two billion people regularly eat insects harvested in the wild, farming them for food at scale is new. The report found that African insect farming could generate crude protein worth up to US$2.6 billion and biofertilizers worth up to US$19.4 billion. That is enough protein meal to meet up to 14% of the crude protein needed to rear all the pigs, goats, fish, and chickens in Africa.

Key benefits of insect farming include:

• Insects can be farmed without arable land.
• Insects can be grown within a couple of weeks.
• The food they need to grow comes from food waste.
• Insect waste can be used as fertilizer.
• Insects can be used as animal feed, cutting farmer expenses, and reducing greenhouse gases generated from farming and transporting other feed such as soybeans.
• People can eat insects or sell them for income, increasing food security.

For more on farming insects and the role they can play in the food system, take a listen to this episode of the Table for 10 Billion podcast .

Fixing Food Finance to Build a Greener Future

While agriculture currently accounts for about 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, it also offers opportunities to both fight climate change and feed more people as the world’s population grows to 10 billion people by 2050. One of the keys will be changing the way agriculture is financed and incentivized .

A report from the Bank, published in September, explains the US$12 trillion in annual hidden social, economic, and environmental costs generated by our current food system and offers recommendations to break the cycle by implementing five food finance imperatives that will help implement climate-smart agriculture .

The report, Food Finance Architecture: Financing a Healthy, Equitable and Sustainable Food System , was written in conjunction with the Food and Land Use Coalition, and the International Food Policy Research Institute, and released to coincide with the UN Food Systems Summit.

A feature story and episode of the Table for 10 Billion podcast examine transforming the food system to adapt to climate change.

Digital Agriculture and the Path to the Future

Agriculture continued its march to the digital future in 2021, both with new techniques being developed for growing food and technology that better links the world’s 570 million farmers and 8 billion consumers.

In March, the Bank released the report What’s Cooking: Digital Transformation of the Agrifood System , which explores how digital technologies are improving the food system and provides a roadmap for countries to scale up their own digital agriculture. The report also provides a framework to evaluate policy proposals that can make the food system more efficient, equitable, and environmentally sustainable.

A live event was held in conjunction with the report’s release and the Table for 10 Billion podcast also looked forward to the digital future of food.

Feeding Growing Cities

In March, the Bank looked at the fast-growing cities of Asia and how they have integrated food systems into their planning. The resulting report, RICH Food, Smart City , demonstrated that more needs to be done at the planning stages to ensure a plentiful and safe supply of food to residents now and in the future.

Only 8% of the 170 emerging Asian cities surveyed by the Bank and FAO were deemed to be “food-smart”–working proactively to ensure strong food systems.

As was made clear by the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is key for cities to pursue “smarter” food policy in order to foster reliable, inclusive, competitive, and healthy (“RICH”) food systems better aligned with their challenges and aspirations.

The authors of the book sat down to answer questions on what needs to be done and how to do it.

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News from the Columbia Climate School

The Emerging Field of Sustainable Agriculture

Steve Cohen

I grew up in Brooklyn and have spent most of my life living in Morningside Heights in Manhattan; my only exposure to farming life was during the last of my five years living in Franklin, Indiana, when I delivered the Daily Journal Newspaper to farmers in rural Johnson and Brown counties. Occasionally, when the farmers were a little short of cash, they paid for their newspapers with produce. I know very little about farming, except that farmers seem to be the hardest-working people I’ve ever known. Modern industrial farming has made American agriculture the most productive in the world, but it is capital-intensive, risky, and polluting. An emerging movement in sustainable agriculture is developing, which promises continued productivity with less pollution. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists :

“There’s a transformation taking place on farms across the United States. For decades, we’ve produced the bulk of our food through industrial agriculture—a system dominated by large farms growing the same crops year after year, using enormous amounts of chemical pesticides and fertilizers that damage our soil, water, air, and climate. This system is not built to last, because it squanders and degrades the resources it depends on. But a growing number of innovative farmers and scientists are taking a different path, moving toward a farming system that is more sustainable—environmentally, economically, and socially. This system has room for farms of all sizes, producing a diverse range of foods, fibers, and fuels adapted to local conditions and regional markets. It uses state-of-the-art, science-based practices that maximize productivity and profit while minimizing environmental damage. Sustainability also means the whole system is more resilient to droughts, floods, and other impacts of climate change that farmers are already seeing. Though the move to this type of system often involves some up-front costs, smart public policies can help farmers make the shift.”

Techniques such as rotating crops and integrating livestock and crops can reduce costs and maintain soil productivity with less need for chemicals and other costly interventions. Notably, some of the “sustainable” techniques represent a return to traditional methods of farming. The issue for many farmers is the capital requirements needed for some of the technology required for sustainable farming and the revenue deferred when giving the soil time to regenerate itself. One company that has addressed these issues is Land O’Lakes, which is a cooperative populated by farmers who are part owners of the company. According to a 2021 Press Release on the Land O’Lakes website:

“Land O’Lakes, Inc. today announced new on-farm sustainability commitments to be adopted by its more than 1,600 member-dairy farms by 2025. Within the next four years, all Land O’Lakes’ dairy farmer-owners will complete an intensive, industry-leading on-farm sustainability assessment aligned with the U.S. Dairy Stewardship Commitment while maintaining universal compliance with the National Milk Producers Federation’s National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) program. This announcement is the next step in Land O’Lakes’ enterprise-wide approach to on-farm sustainability.”

This company has learned that sustainability practices can reduce both costs and pollution. By using satellites, automation, GPS, and other technologies, they can precisely target water, fertilizer, and pesticides to plants, thereby reducing resource use, costs, and pollution. Managing manure from their many dairy cows enables Land O’Lakes to utilize this resource for fertilizer and energy. Efforts are underway to promote these methods globally, with limited success. According to Rochelle Toplensky of the Wall Street Journal :

“The Sustainable Markets Initiative, a private-sector group launched in 2020, set up its Agribusiness Task Force to accelerate regenerative agriculture adoption and includes senior leaders from Mars, McDonald’s, PepsiCo , Bayer , McCain, Mondelez and others. The task force’s 2022 report concluded the main hurdle to adopting regenerative practices was that farmers’ short-term economics don’t add up, but it also found there was a knowledge gap and not everyone in the value-chain was aligned. Follow-up work concluded that farmers need financial incentives and derisking mechanisms as well as technical and peer-to-peer support. Also important were agreeing [to] environmental outcome metrics and creating supportive policy and payments for so-called ecosystem services such as rebuilding biodiversity and water quality.”

In the United States—and throughout the world—there is potential for a transformation of agricultural practices to make them more efficient and less polluting. But agriculture is an industry characterized by a wide variety of cultural traditions, business models, and geographic conditions. Sustainable practices make economic and environmental sense, and farmers who practice them will outcompete those who don’t. Nevertheless, the transition requires capital, technical expertise, and the willingness and training to experiment with new production processes. The piece by the Union of Concerned Scientists recognizes this and calls for public policy to provide the incentives needed to bring about this transition. The United States has had an activist federal farm policy since the 19 th century. It dates back to the establishment of Land Grant Colleges in the Morrill Act of 1862, where the federal government gave states federal lands in exchange for the establishment of agricultural colleges. The federal government also developed agricultural extension services to train farmers in the latest methods of farming.

In the United States, agricultural policies and subsidies are legislated in the “Farm Bill,” which has been renewed eighteen times since it was first enacted during the New Deal of the 1930s. According to the Congressional Research Services Primer on the Farm Bill , last updated on February 29, 2024:

“Farm bills traditionally have focused on farm commodity program support for a handful of staple commodities—corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, peanuts, dairy, and sugar. Farm bills have become increasingly expansive in nature since 1973, when a nutrition title was first included. Other prominent additions since then include horticulture and bioenergy titles and expansion of conservation, research, and rural development titles.”

Traditionally, agriculture policy in the United States was dominated by rural farm states due to their over-representation in the United States Senate. Lightly populated farm states have the same number of senators (two) as heavily populated industrial states. Farm policy was more important in rural states, and in exchange for votes from industrial states on urban initiatives, farm-state senators traditionally dominated U.S. agriculture policy. This changed in the 1970s when food subsidies for poor people were added to the farm bill, and today, over 75% of the funding in the farm bill subsidizes these “nutrition” programs. In the most recent farm bill, nutrition funding totaled $1.1 billion, crop insurance $124 million, and conservation funding was about $58 million. The politics of agriculture policy is no longer dominated by the farm states. According to the Congressional Research Service :

“The omnibus nature of the farm bill can create broad coalitions of support among sometimes conflicting interests for policies that individually might have greater difficulty achieving majority support in the legislative process. In recent years, more stakeholders have become involved in the debate on farm bills, including national farm groups; commodity associations; state organizations; nutrition and public health officials; and advocacy groups representing conservation, recreation, rural development, faith-based interests, local food systems, and organic production. These factors can contribute to increased interest in the allocation of funds provided in a farm bill.”

This broader coalition might be drawn upon to support an expansion of agricultural subsidies to enable farms to receive the financial support needed to transition to renewable agricultural practices in the United States. Farm policy and environmental/climate policy might well be brought together to modernize American agriculture and reduce its release of toxics and greenhouse gasses into the environment. Funding the transition to renewable agriculture does not need to be justified as climate policy, although it would have the impact of reducing greenhouse gas pollution. It could well be sold as modernizing American agriculture to better position it for global competition.

Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Columbia Climate School, Earth Institute or Columbia University.

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• Farm Acts 2020

Farm Acts, 2020 [UPSC Current Affairs]

The Indian agriculture acts of 2020, often referred to as the Farm Acts are three acts initiated by the Parliament of India in September 2020. After having been approved by the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, the President of India gave his assent to the bills on 27 September 2020. In this article, you can read all about the farm acts of 2020, which are in the news very often. This is a part of the  UPSC Syllabus  under current affairs, economy, agriculture and polity.

Farm Acts, 2020:- Download PDF Here

Farm Laws Latest News

In November 2021, the Prime Minister in an address to the nation announced that the three farm laws would be repealed in the wake of the unending protests by some of the farmers. The government will bring in a single bill in Parliament to repeal the three acts. All boards and offices that were constituted for implementing the provisions of the laws would also cease operations and any decision made by the boards would be null and void (some states had tried to operationalise the laws during the brief six-month period).

Farm Acts, 2020 Background

• Agriculture comes under the state list of Schedule 7 of the Indian Constitution and to initiate reforms in the agricultural sector, in 2017, the central government had released model farming acts. However, several reforms suggested in the model acts had not been implemented by the states. The centre promulgated three ordinances in the first week of June 2020.
• In September 2020, the President gave assent to the three farm acts.
• There have been protests against the acts by farmers in Punjab, Haryana and other states. Some states have also opposed the new legislation. The Kerala legislative assembly passed a resolution against the farm reforms and sought their withdrawal.
• The Supreme Court stayed the implementation of the Farm Acts 2020 and constituted a four-member committee to make recommendations within two months.
• The three laws aim to change the way agricultural produce is marketed, sold and stored across the country. They are mostly focussed on the forward linkages to the agricultural sector.

The following are the three acts passed and their salient provisions.

The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020:

• The act aims at opening up agricultural sale and marketing outside the notified Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis for farmers, removes barriers to inter-State trade and provides a framework for electronic trading of agricultural produce. It expands the scope of trade areas of farmers’ produce from select areas to “any place of production, collection, aggregation”.
• It prohibits state governments from levying any market fee, cess, or levy on farmers, traders, and electronic trading platforms for the trade of farmers’ produce conducted in an ‘outside trade area’.
• The act seeks to break the monopoly of government-regulated mandis and allow farmers to sell directly to private buyers.

Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020:

• It creates a national framework for contract farming. It provides a legal framework for farmers to enter into written contracts with companies and produce for them.
• The written farming agreement, entered into prior to the production or rearing of any farm produce, lists the terms and conditions for supply, quality, grade, standards and price of farm produce and services.
• It defines a dispute resolution mechanism. The Act provides for a three-level dispute settlement mechanism– Conciliation Board, Sub-Divisional Magistrate and Appellate Authority.

Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020:

• It removes cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onions and potatoes from the list of essential commodities. It will deregulate the production, storage, movement and distribution of these food commodities.
• It will also remove stockholding limits on such items except under “extraordinary circumstances”. The central government is allowed regulation of supply during war, famine, extraordinary price rise and natural calamity of grave nature and annual retail price rise exceeding 100% in horticultural produce (basically onions and potatoes) and 50% for non-perishables (cereals, pulses and edible oils), while providing exemptions for exporters and processors at such times as well.
• It requires that imposition of any stock limit on agricultural produce be based on price rise.
• It will allow agribusinesses to stock food articles and remove the government’s ability to impose restrictions arbitrarily.

Arguments in Favour of the Farm Acts

• The acts are being hailed as a watershed moment in the history of Indian agriculture that could initiate a complete transformation of agriculture.
• The new farm acts would help the small and marginal farmers (86% of total farmers) who don’t have the means to either bargain for their produce to get a better price or invest in technology to improve the productivity of farms.
• The new acts will help in establishing a much more integrated market, creating competition, and enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of the marketing domain of the agricultural sector.

Addressing the lacunae of APMC acts:

• The law related to the regulation of Indian agricultural markets like the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC) act had led to centralization and was thought to be reducing competition and participation, with undue commissions, market fees, and monopoly of associations damaging the agricultural sector.
• The act seeks to break the monopoly of government-regulated mandis and allow farmers to sell directly to private buyers by circumventing the APMCs. The new laws provide full autonomy for farmers to sell their produce.

Higher price realization for farmers:

• The act is expected to increase the freedom of choice of sale of agri-produce for the farmers and this could help the farmers in getting a better price for their produce because of more choices of markets. This would allow small and marginal farmers to sell their produce at market and competitive prices.
• The act allows for private players to buy the farmers’ produce even at their farm gates. This will allow the farmers to get better prices through competition and cost-cutting on transportation.
• The farmers will be able to get a greater share of the price being paid by the customers, which currently stands at a lowly 15%.
• This would help raise rural incomes and subsequently provide an impetus to the economy at large due to the increased demand from the rural areas.

One India, one agricultural market:

• It is expected to pave the way for the creation of a ‘One India, One Agriculture Market’ by promoting barrier-free inter-state and intra-state trade with provisions of electronic trading as well. This could help correct the regional disparities in demand and supply of the agricultural produce. This could help farmers of regions with surplus produce to get better prices and consumers of regions with shortages, lower prices.

Risk mitigation:

• Contract farming will help small and marginal farmers transfer the risk of market unpredictability from the farmer to the sponsor.
• It reduces the risk of price and marketing costs on small and marginal farmers.

Better price discovery:

• Contract farming will help farmers reduce the cost of marketing and improve their incomes.
• Farmers will engage in direct marketing thereby eliminating intermediaries resulting in the better realization of price.

Scope for increasing farm productivity:

• Contract farming agreements between companies and farmers are already operational in crops of particular processing grades (the potatoes used by beverages and snacks giant PepsiCo for its Lay’s and Uncle Chips wafers) or dedicated for exports (gherkins). The processors/exporters in these cases typically not only undertake assured buyback at pre-agreed prices, but also provide farmers with seeds/planting material and extension support to ensure that only produce of the desired standard is grown.

Impetus to private sector participation:

• The act seeks to encourage private sector participation in procurement and reduce the government burden of procuring.
• Contract farming can ensure uninterrupted sources for their production and also secure the purchaser from market price fluctuations.

Legal framework protecting farmer interests:

• The legal framework for contract farming will empower farmers to engage with the contract buyers on a level playing field without any fear of exploitation. The mutually agreed remunerative price framework is envisaged under the act. This provision is touted to protect and empower farmers.
• Sale, lease or mortgage of farmers’ land is totally prohibited and farmers’ land is also protected against any recovery.
• Farmers have been provided with adequate protection.
• An effective dispute resolution mechanism has been provided with clear timelines for redressal.

Addressing the lacunae in ECA, 1955:

• The Economic Survey 2019-20, which has extensively analyzed the Essential Commodities Act, notes that the government intervention under the ECA 1955 often distorted agricultural trade while being totally ineffective in curbing inflation.
• Since large stocks held by traders can be outlawed under the ECA 1955 anytime, they tend to buy far less than their usual capacity and farmers often suffer huge losses during surplus harvests of perishables. The threat of restrictions also acts as a disincentive for private investment into cold storage, warehouses, processing and export as entrepreneurs get discouraged by the regulatory mechanisms in the Essential Commodities Act, 1955.
• Such laws also restrict opportunities to export even when global crop prices go up.

Attracting private investment:

• The deregulation through ECA amendment will help attract private sector/ foreign direct investment into the agriculture sector.

Improve the forward linkage infrastructure:

• The incoming private sector investment would help build supply chain infrastructure for the agricultural sector. This could help facilitate the supply of Indian farm produce to national and global markets.

Arguments against the Farm Acts

Some of the farmer organizations and others have called the acts corporate-friendly and anti-farmer and have expressed the fear that the new acts may hurt the farmers’ interests. The bills have faced strong protests mainly from Punjab farmers and from opposition parties.

Against the spirit of federalism:

• Since agriculture and markets are State subjects – entry 14 and 28 respectively in List II – the acts are being seen as a direct encroachment upon the functions of the States and against the spirit of cooperative federalism enshrined in the Constitution.
• The Centre, however, argued that trade and commerce in food items is part of the concurrent list, thus giving it constitutional propriety.

Fears with respect to MSP system:

• Farmers fear that the new proposed system will end the minimum support price regime. They fear that encouraging tax-free private trade outside the APMC mandis will make these notified markets unviable, which could lead to a reduction in government procurement itself.
• The creation of private mandis will drive agriculture business towards private mandis, ending government markets, intermediary systems and APMCs. In a scenario where more and more trading moves out of the APMCs, these regulated market yards will lose revenues.
• As a result, big corporate houses will overtake markets, thereby procuring farm produce at incidental rates. Critics view the dismantling of the monopoly of the APMCs as a sign of ending the assured procurement of food grains at minimum support prices (MSP). This could lead to the increasing clout of private buyers and could lead to low bargaining powers of the farmers.
• Lack of statutory support in the acts for the MSP is a major point of concern, especially for farmers from Punjab and Haryana, where 65% of wheat (2019) is procured at MSP by the Food Corporation of India and state agencies.
• Critics argue that ensuring a larger number of farmers get the MSP for their produce and straightening kinks in the APMCs, instead of making these State mechanisms redundant is the need of the hour.

Effect on state revenues:

• Mandis bring in revenue for state governments. The diversion of agricultural trade towards private mandis could lead to the loss of states’ revenues.
• Some states are concerned about the loss of revenue from mandi taxes and fees, which currently range from 8.5% in Punjab to less than 1% in some States.

Effect of middlemen:

• Middlemen working with APMC and traders will be affected.

Past examples:

• The deregulation of the sugar industry in 1998, which paved the way for private establishments, did not result in a significant improvement in farmers’ productivity or incomes.
• A state-led attempt in Bihar to deregulate the APMCs in 2006 has not resulted in an increase in farmers’ income or improved infrastructure.
• Without strong institutional arrangements, laissez-faire (no economic interventionism) policy may harm lakhs of unorganised small farmers.

Cases of fraud:

• 150 farmers from four districts in Madhya Pradesh were allegedly defrauded of over Rs 5 crore by traders. Similar cases have been reported recently from Hoshangabad, Seoni, Gwalior, Guna, Balaghat, Barwani and Jabalpur districts.

Challenges to farmers:

• The inability of the small and marginal farmers to understand the terms of the contract may lead to the exploitation of such farmers.
• The lack of bargaining power of farmers with big companies is also a major concern.
• Critics are apprehensive about formal contractual obligations owing to the unorganised nature of the farm sector and lack of resources for a legal battle with private corporate entities.

Lack of price fixation mechanism:

• The Price Assurance Act, while offering protection to farmers against price exploitation, does not prescribe the mechanism for price fixation. There is apprehension that the free hand given to private corporate houses could lead to farmer exploitation.

Increased threat of food insecurity:

• Critics anticipate that the easing of regulation of food items would lead to exporters, processors and traders hoarding farm produce during the harvest season, when prices are generally lower, and releasing it later when prices increase. This could undermine food security.

Increased volatility of food items:

• Critics anticipate irrational volatility in the prices of essentials and increased black marketing.

Lack of clear cut guidelines:

• The act proposes a price trigger mechanism for invoking ECA. However, it involves a wide range for a price trigger to invoke the ECA. Many things are left vague. Price triggers or price levels do not have a reference to a locality.

Farm Acts – Critical analysis

The constitutional validity of the acts:

• Article 246 of the Constitution places “agriculture” in entry 14 and “markets and fairs” in entry 28 of the State List. But entry 42 of the Union List empowers the Centre to regulate “inter-State trade and commerce”. While trade and commerce “within the State” is under entry 26 of the State List, it is subject to the provisions of entry 33 of the Concurrent List – under which the Centre can make laws that would prevail over those enacted by the states.
• Entry 33 of the Concurrent List covers trade and commerce in “foodstuffs, including edible oilseeds and oils, fodder, cotton and jute”. The Centre, in other words, can pass any law that removes all impediments to both inter- and intra-state trade in farm produce, while also overriding the existing state APMC Acts. The FPTC Act does precisely that.
• However, some experts make a distinction between agricultural “marketing” and “trade”. Agriculture per se would deal with everything that a farmer does — right from field preparation and cultivation to also the sale of his/her own produce. The act of primary sale at a mandi by the farmer is as much “agriculture” as production in the field. “Trade” begins only after the produce has been “marketed” by the farmer.
• Going by this interpretation, the Centre is within its rights to frame laws that promote barrier-free trade of farm produce (inter- as well as intra-state) and do not allow stockholding or export restrictions. But these can be only after the farmer has sold. Regulation of the first sale of agricultural produce is a “marketing” responsibility of the states, not the Centre.
• The Judiciary will have to take a call on the constitutional validity of the farm acts, 2020.

Need to address misconceptions:

Misconceptions regarding MSP:

• An analysis of the recent laws makes it clear that as against the prevalent misconception that the prevailing system of Minimum Support Price (MSP) is being replaced, rather new options were being put forward for the farmers through these farm bills.
• The government has made it clear that procurement at MSP will continue and also that the mandis will not stop functioning. Under the new system, farmers will have the option to sell their produce at other places in addition to the mandis.
• It is worth noting that only 6% of farmers actually sell their crops at MSP rates, according to the 2015 Shanta Kumar Committee’s report using National Sample Survey data. None of the laws directly impinges upon the MSP regime.

Misconceptions regarding contract farming:

• There are fears that contract farming will lead to land loss of the small and marginal farmers to big corporates. However, adequate protection of land ownership is in place to protect farmer interests.
• The act explicitly prohibits any sponsor firm from acquiring the land of farmers – whether through purchase, lease or mortgage.
• The point to note is that contract cultivation is voluntary in nature and farmers cannot be forced into an agreement.

Inevitability of agricultural reforms:

• The Indian farmer constitutes 40 per cent of the country and an even higher percentage of its poor and as the available data points out, is under immense stress.
• Indian economic and social development depends upon the empowerment of the farmers and the rural segment of our population. Thus there is an urgent need for agricultural sector reforms to move beyond the antiquated agricultural policies.
• The Indian farm bills are in line with international precedence wherein a number of developing economies have been making changes to their agriculture policies since the 1990s to encourage private sector involvement which would provide a major fillip to the sector.
• The International Monetary Fund has also backed the recent farm acts as being an important step in the right direction.

Way forward:

• The farm acts are a step in the right direction and there is the need to ensure the effective implementation of the same.
• The following measures could help address some of the concerns regarding the farm laws.
• The move to enlarge the market for agricultural produce is welcome but this should be supplemented by measures that will help preserve the existing ‘safety net’ mechanisms like MSP and public procurement.
• Though a farmer will have the freedom to choose where he/she wants to sell, he/she may not have the knowledge to negotiate the best terms with a private company. The state should work towards empowering the farmers in this direction.
• The government must create enabling infrastructure to enable the farmers to do barrier-free trading of agricultural commodities.
• The method of determining prices, including guaranteed price and additional amount, should be provided in the agreement as annexures. The government must ensure suitable provisions to ensure that the prices are not below the MSP.
• In case of prices subjected to variations, the contract agreement must include a guaranteed price to be paid for such produce, and a clear reference linked to the prevailing prices or any other suitable benchmark prices for any additional amount over and above the guaranteed price, including bonus or premium.
• There should be time-bound redressal of grievances.

These Farm Acts, their effects and the significance of repealing them are important for the upcoming UPSC exam .

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Unproductive Agriculture Is Holding Africa Back

By Peter Coy

Opinion Writer

Africa south of the Sahara is producing more than six times as much food as it did in 1961. That’s a much bigger increase than that of the world as a whole, which has merely quadrupled agricultural output, as this chart shows. From this data alone, sub-Saharan Africa seems to be an agricultural success story.

The next chart, though, gives a much darker picture. It shows sub-Saharan Africa badly trailing the world as a whole in improvements in total factor productivity of agriculture. Total factor productivity measures how much output increases over and above what one would expect from increased inputs of land, labor and machinery.

What these two charts tell us is that while Africa is increasing its output of crops, livestock and so on, it’s managing to do so only by massively increasing its inputs. That means many more farmers and much more land under cultivation or pasture. It’s better than if farm output hadn’t increased at all, but it’s not what the subcontinent needs to get ahead economically.

The classic story of economic development is that farmers become more efficient, which frees up their children to work in factories. The increase in factory output enriches the population, generating more demand for food. And the factories produce farm machinery that makes farmers even more efficient. Improvements in agriculture and industry reinforce each other in an upward spiral.

That’s not happening in sub-Saharan Africa. To understand why, I interviewed Enock Chikava, who grew up with 10 siblings on a small farm in Zimbabwe. “As a boy, I would spend long summers, from May to October, gathering crop debris and leaves from the nearby forest to mix into the soil as fertilizer,” he recalled in a 2021 article for the Gates Foundation, where he is the interim director of agricultural development.

Chikava, who went on to get an education in agricultural economics and business strategy, says economic growth in the agricultural sector is more than twice as effective at reducing poverty as is growth in other sectors.

Improving African farmers’ productivity requires three things, Chikava told me: innovation, extension (which means introducing innovations to farmers) and market incentives.

There’s progress on all three fronts. Cassava, for example, is a staple food in much of Africa and is hardy against drought. New varieties, called Baba 70 and Game Changer, can more than quadruple yields per hectare on small farms in Nigeria when cultivated with good agronomic practices and weed control, Chikava said. As for extension, countries are informing farmers digitally because they can’t afford to put enough extension officers in the field. On market incentives, sub-Saharan nations are using a mixture of price supports and subsidies for inputs such as fertilizer. That may offend pure free-marketers, and isn’t the best permanent solution, but often it’s the only way to keep farmers from quitting because they can’t make a living, Chikava said.

Tech companies are springing up to help. One example is Releaf, an agricultural technology company based in Lagos, Nigeria, that supplies palm oil to food companies. It’s using geospatial mapping and other technologies to locate small processing facilities closer to palm nut farmers, who can’t afford to ship the nuts long distances.

There’s a long way to go, though. Another reason for low productivity is that under the land tenure system that’s common in much of Africa, people keep the land only if they keep using it. So some farmers are doing just enough to maintain their claims, Kate Schecter, the president of World Neighbors, a U.S.-based charity that operates in 14 countries, including six in Africa, told me. In Burkina Faso, for example, World Neighbors’ country director told her that landowners “don’t necessarily learn very much about how to use the farm,” Schecter said. “It’s underexploited.”

Christopher Udry, an economics professor at Northwestern University, taught secondary school in Ghana while serving in the Peace Corps in the 1980s. He was struck by the missed economic opportunities. Children who spoke four languages dropped out after elementary school because they couldn’t make it to the nearest junior secondary school. “Once you meet people like that, it’s hard to think of anything else,” he said in a recent interview with Yale University, where he earned his doctorate.

Confirming what Chikava and Schecter told me, Udry said that agricultural yields are declining the most in the places where farmers have the most opportunities to do something else with their time. The more that opportunities in cities multiply, the more farmers are drawn away from the land.

The farmers are better off than if they didn’t have those outside options. “But it’s not the great productivity spiral that we did see in, say, American history,” Udry said. For sub-Saharan Africa to advance economically, fixing its farming must be a top priority.

Outlook: Deutsche Bank

There will be “a fire hose of Fedspeak and a deluge of important data” this week, economists at Deutsche Bank wrote in a client note last week. They pointed to speeches by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and other Fed officials as well as to major economic releases, including the March jobs report. The economists predict that Powell will continue to say on Wednesday that there’s no hurry about cutting rates, and that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will report on Friday that the U.S. economy added 200,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in March, down from the 275,000 that was reported for February.

Quote of the Day

“What other people label or might try to call failure I have learned is just God’s way of pointing you in a new direction.”

— Oprah Winfrey, in a commencement speech at Howard University ( May 12, 2007 )

Peter Coy is a writer for the Opinion section of The Times, covering economics and business. Email him at [email protected] . @ petercoy

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April 2, 2024

Farmer sentiment declines in September, inflation expectations jump

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — U.S. farmers’ outlook improved in March as the Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer index increased to 114, marking a 3-point rise from February. While the Index of Current Conditions fell by 2 points to 101, the Index of Future Expectations climbed to 120, up by 5 points from February. The disparity between current and future indexes was primarily influenced by farmers’ perceptions of a financial downturn taking place in the past year, coupled with some expectations for improvement over the next 12 months. The March survey was conducted from March 11-15, 2024.

“Producers’ expectations for interest rate changes have shifted, which could help explain why producers look for financial conditions to improve,” said James Mintert , the barometer’s principal investigator and director of Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Agriculture .

This month 48% of respondents said they expect a decline in the U.S. prime interest rate over the next year, up from 35% in December. Just one-third (32%) foresee an increase, compared to 43% last month. Only 20% of respondents this month identified the risk of rising interest rates as a primary concern, a decrease from the 24% recorded December 2023. High input costs continue to be producers’ No. 1 concern, with 36% of respondents expressing worry.

The Farm Capital Investment Index increased by 7 points this month, indicating growing optimism among producers about making large investments. Producers who said it is a good time for a large investment rose to 15%, up 11% from the start of the year. This optimism is fueled by producers who pointed to strong cash flows on their farms, coupled with higher dealer inventories for farm machinery. However, some producers still feel hesitant to invest due to concerns about high costs for machinery and construction and high interest rates.

Producers displayed a more optimistic short-term outlook on farmland values in March, with the Short-Term Farmland Values Index rising to 124, a 9-point increase from the previous month. This month, 38% of producers expect farmland values to increase in the coming year, compared to 31% in January and February.

“Factors contributing to this optimism included non-farm investor demand, inflation expectations and strong cash flows. An improved interest rate outlook might have been a factor as well, although producers didn’t point to that explicitly in this month’s survey,” Mintert said.

More farmers this month (24%) said they believe farmland prices will go up because of inflation expectations compared to last month (18%). There was also a slight increase in producers citing strong cash flows (8% in March versus 6% in February) as a reason, and a modest decline in the number of producers who mentioned non-farm investor demand as a major factor influencing the farmland market. However, despite this decline, 57% of producers still consider non-farm investor demand the primary reason for their bullish outlook on farmland values. 

Interest in using farmland for carbon sequestration or solar energy production appears to be increasing. In this month’s survey, nearly 1 out of 5 respondents (18%) said they or their landowners had been approached about carbon capture utilization and storage on their farmland. Additionally, 12% of this month’s respondents said they had discussions with companies interested in leasing farmland for a solar energy project in the last six months, compared to 10% in February. When it comes to long-term farmland lease rates offered by solar energy companies, 54% of respondents this month said they were offered $1,000 or more per acre, while just over one-fourth (27%) were offered $1,250 or more per acre.

The March barometer also revealed that many farmers are concerned about potential government policy changes affecting their farms following this year’s elections. Forty-three percent of respondents anticipate more restrictive regulations for agriculture. Additionally, 4 out of 10 (39%) producers expect taxes impacting agriculture to rise.

About the Purdue University Center for Commercial Agriculture

The Center for Commercial Agriculture was founded in 2011 to provide professional development and educational programs for farmers. Housed within Purdue University’s Department of Agricultural Economics, the center’s faculty and staff develop and execute research and educational programs that address the different needs of managing in today’s business environment. 

About Purdue University  

Purdue University is a public research institution demonstrating excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top four in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, including nearly 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the new Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, and Purdue Computes — at  https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives .  

About CME Group

As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group ( www.cmegroup.com ) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on  interest rates ,  equity indexes ,  foreign exchange ,  energy ,  agricultural products  and  metals . The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the  CME Globex ® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world’s leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing.

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec and EBS are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD and EBS Group LTD, respectively. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC (“S&P DJI”). “S&P®”, “S&P 500®”, “SPY®”, “SPX®”, US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Writer:   Erin Robinson, [email protected]

Source:   James Mintert, 765-494-7004,   [email protected]

Media Contacts:

Aissa Good, Purdue University, 765-496-3884,   [email protected]

Dana Schmidt, CME Group, 312-872-5443,  [email protected]

Related websites:

Purdue University Center for Commercial Agriculture:   http://purdue.edu/commercialag

CME Group:   http://www.cmegroup.com/

Agricultural Communications:  (765) 494-8415;

Maureen Manier, Department Head,  [email protected]   

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Lesotho annual country report 2023 - country strategic plan 2019 - 2024, attachments.

In 2023, WFP continued to implement its country strategic plan (CSP) in Lesotho, which was launched in 2019 to address the deep-rooted food insecurity and malnutrition in the country. Contributing to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 (Zero Hunger) and 17 (Partnerships for the Goals), the CSP covers five strategic outcomes: crisis response, school feeding and emergency preparedness, nutrition, resilience building support to smallholder farmers facing climate shocks, and service delivery.

In 2023, WFP reached 108,169 food insecure people through activities implemented under these broad strategic outcomes. WFP assisted over 32,000 people in five drought-affected districts with food assistance and provided cash-based transfers to 14,783 people who participated in the Food Assistance for Assets (FFA) intervention aimed at improving the adaptive, absorptive and transformative capacities of vulnerable people to climate shocks. Furthermore, WFP remained the largest provider of school meals at pre-primary level, supporting more than 45,200 children in 2,500 schools, including with home-grown school feeding.

Lesotho continued to face an unprecedented food crisis in 2023, driven by a combination of multiple shocks, including hailstorms, pest invasions, heavy rains and high food prices. WFP faced significant funding constraints and could not launch the lean season support. Recognizing the deteriorating situation and faced by inadequate resources, WFP supported the Government to activate anticipatory action to mitigate the effects of the anticipated El Nino. Since anticipatory action plan activation, WFP reached around 60,000 people through cash-based transfers, provision of agricultural inputs, and dissemination of early warning and early action messages. Anticipatory action activities played a key role in addressing food needs of vulnerable people during the lean season in 2023.

According to the September 2023 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, thanks to the assistance provided by WFP and partners, there are no people experiencing emergency conditions (IPC Phase 4) and famine-like conditions (IPC Phase 5). However, humanitarian assistance has not been adequate to reverse deteriorating hunger levels and further investments in long-term resilience and development programmes are required to provide lasting solutions to recurrent hunger. The number of people requiring emergency food and nutrition assistance remains high, with 58,700 people rural and urban areas experiencing high levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 3) between October 2023-March 2024. With the peak of the lean season (January-March 2024) still ahead, this level of food insecurity is cause for concern.

In 2023, WFP strengthened its partnerships with the Government, local communities, and other UN agencies on food distributions, nutrition programming, capacity strengthening, and emergency preparedness, helping to advance policies and progress towards the SDGs. This included working with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to purchase and install a High-Performance Computer system for the Lesotho Meteorological Services to enhance weather forecasting. WFP also provided logistical services to the Disaster Management Authority, supporting with transportation, milling and fortification of 850 metric tons of maize grain, further cementing its role as the service provider of choice for the humanitarian community.

WFP integrated nutrition across the six activities of the country strategic plan in efforts to amplify the impact of WFP’s operations in combatting malnutrition and fostering healthy dietary practices among the communities. WFP collaborated with the Ministry of Police (Child and Gender Protection Unit), and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition (nutrition department) and the Ministry of Health to undertake interpersonal social behaviour change (SBC) sensitization during distributions and at Food Assistance for Assets project sites with the objective of improving women, men, boys, and girls’ knowledge on good nutrition practices, HIV awareness, sexual reproductive health, human rights, gender-based violence, and climate change. The follow-up assessment conducted after the sensitizations indicated that these resulted in increased, diversified homestead production of vegetables using climate smart plots. WFP achieved a significant milestone through the provision of technical support to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition, leading to the establishment of community-based nutrition clubs targeting diverse age groups and demographics. These clubs played a pivotal role in enhancing nutrition knowledge across communities including among men who traditionally consider nutrition related practices as a woman’s role.

Partnerships were crucial to achieving meaningful impact across the sustainable development agenda. Thanks to the generous support of partners that enabled WFP to implement the planned activities to the benefit of those they served. WFP worked closely with the Government, as well as the Government of Japan, Germany, European Commission, and many others. WFP also received timely support from the Principality of Monaco, along with support from private foundations and the private sector. The Adaptation Fund also played a critical role in enabling WFP’s resilience building operations in Lesotho.

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Lesotho annual country report 2022 - country strategic plan 2019 - 2024.

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Zimbabwe: 2019 - 2020 humanitarian appeal revision (february 2019 - april 2020), 2018-2019 mozambique humanitarian response plan (november 2018 - june 2019) - revised following cyclone idai, march 2019.

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Final Rule: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles – Phase 3

• 42 U.S.C. §7401 - 7671q
• 40 CFR Parts 2, 59, 60, 80, 86, 87, 600, 1030, 1031, 1033, 1036, 1037, 1039, 1042, 1043, 1045, 1048, 1051, 1054, 1060, 1065, 1066, 1068, and 1090
• EPA-HQ-OAR-2022-0985

On this page:

Rule summary, rule history, additional resources.

• Regulations for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Commercial Trucks & Buses
• Regulations for Smog, Soot, and Other Air Pollution from Commercial Trucks & Buses

Para información en español, haga clic aquí .

On March 29, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a final rule, “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles – Phase 3,” that sets stronger standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heavy-duty (HD) vehicles beginning in model year (MY) 2027. The new standards will be applicable to HD vocational vehicles (such as delivery trucks, refuse haulers, public utility trucks, transit, shuttle, school buses, etc.) and tractors (such as day cabs and sleeper cabs on tractor-trailer trucks).

The final “Phase 3” standards build on EPA’s Heavy-Duty Phase 2 program from 2016 and maintain that program’s flexible structure, which is designed to reflect the diverse nature of the heavy-duty vehicle industry. The standards are technology-neutral and performance-based, allowing each manufacturer to choose what set of emissions control technologies is best suited for them and the needs of their customers.

• Final Rule: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles -Phase 3 (pdf) (8.5 MB, pre-publication, signed March 2024)
• Proposed Rule: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles – Phase 3
• Fact Sheet: Final Standards to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Heavy-Duty Vehicles for Model Year 2027 and Beyond (pdf) (185.2 KB, March 2024, EPA-420-F-24-018)
• Fact sheet in Spanish: Normas fnales para reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero de los vehículos pesados modelos del año 2027 y posteriores (pdf) (191.6 KB, March 2024, EPA-420-F-24-019)
• Regulatory Impact Analysis: Control of Air Pollution from New Motor Vehicles: Heavy-Duty Engine and Vehicle Standards Regulatory Impact Analysis (pdf) (14.2 MB, March 2024, EPA-420-R-24-006)
• Response to Comments: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles: Phase 3 (pdf) (16 MB, March 2024, EPA-420-R-24-007)
• Regulations for Emissions from Vehicles and Engines Home
• Greenhouse Gas