Agriculture and Food Security

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Reducing poverty and improving food security through small-scale agriculture

With more than 1 billion undernourished people, the world faces critical food challenges—rising costs, extreme price fluctuations, and food demand that’s expected to double within 40 years.

IDRC works to enhance food security through small-scale farming and environmentally sustainable food production. To achieve that goal, we support research that will:

increase yields and incomes from small-scale farming
provide food to meet the needs of rural and urban consumers
ensure more equitable food distribution to the world’s poorest

Our work focuses on innovation, technological improvements, and better agri-food policies that will promote sustainability and be truly effective, now and for future generations.

Read the program prospectus in English or French.

Latest Project

Improving the Nutrition and Health of CARICOM Populations (CIFSRF)

In the Caribbean, malnutrition is increasingly taking the form of over-nutrition and the prevalence of obesity is on the rise. Caribbean countries have a long history of reliance on exports of plantat

Latest Result

New public-private partnerships address global food security

Public-private partnerships in agriculture are rapidly gaining in importance. To understand this emerging trend, IDRC has been working with the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) to investigate how these partnerships work, and...

News

Government highlights IDRC’s efforts in fighting hunger in Guatemala

24/12/2012

An IDRC project designed to supply the science needed to reduce food insecurity and malnutrition in Guatemala was launched by Canada’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (the Americas), the Honourable Diane Albonczy, in early December. The...

Fighting Malnutrition with Science in Guatemala

05/12/2012

A three-year IDRC project to make food more secure and nutritious in Guatemala ─ a country with one of the highest rates of chronic malnutrition in the world ─ was launched in Guatemala on December 5. Food Insecurity and Under-Nutrition in Guatemala...

Featured Publication

Smart solutions to a worsening water crisis

Innovative policies and new technologies that reduce water waste are helping countries across the Middle East and North Africa deal with chronic water shortages. Those advances spring from the simple idea that preventing water loss is...

Events

Highlight: World Food Prize winner Daniel Hillel on today’s environmental challenges

17/04/2013

The world needs to pool its intellectual and physical resources to tackle today’s environmental challenges, 2012 World Food Prize laureate Daniel Hillel told a rapt audience in Ottawa. In a recent public talk at IDRC’s head office, the pioneer...

Highlight: Research explores solutions to climate change impacts, food insecurity in Pakistan

21/06/2012

New IDRC-funded research on climate change, water, and food security is underway in flood-devastated regions in Pakistan.A workshop organized by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics launched the project and brought together key...

Latest Results

New public-private partnerships address global food security

New report highlights inequality in rural Latin America

Innovations can change lives in rural Latin America

External Review and Impact Assessment of the African Highlands Initiative (AHI)

Latest Results

New report highlights inequality in rural Latin America

Latin America is the most inequitable region of the world, and regional inequalities within it present a serious challenge to development, a recent report states. "In Latin America, one’s place of birth or residence is not a minor issue...

Latest Results

Meet two rural innovators

Rural technological innovations can improve lives. This 5-minute video shows two cases of innovations that have spread far and wide. The interviews were filmed during an international meeting of innovators on November 8-10, 2011 in Lima, Peru...

Latest Results

Innovations can change lives in rural Latin America

Innovations stemming from the imaginative combination of local knowledge and science can stimulate development in impoverished rural settings in Latin America. Yet, their impact is often localized and little is known about these innovations. For...

Latest Results

External Review and Impact Assessment of the African Highlands Initiative (AHI)

It is widely acknowledged that INRM is a means of achieving the CGIAR’s multiple goals of food security, poverty alleviation, and protection of the natural environment. The CGIAR has defined INRM as "a way of doing development-oriented research...

IDRC funds researchers in the developing world so they can build healthier, more prosperous societies

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