Defining the path towards climate-efficient agrifood system infrastructure

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Project Summary

This joint FAO-EBRD project explores the potential of a new generation of agrifood system infrastructure for achieving increased efficiency, resilience, decarbonization, and the promotion of a more sustainable water, energy, and land nexus.

CONTEXT

Agrifood systems represent a significant part of the global economy, valued at over US$10 trillion (FAO et al, 2023). They employ over a quarter of the world’s workforce, and feed billions of people and livestock.

Agrifood system infrastructure can be defined as the long lived, capital intensive, strategically important physical assets, that provide essential services or facilities enabling the functioning of the agrifood system. They are critical drivers of agrifood systems, and provide an important entry point to address agrifood systems’ sustainability, resilience and inclusiveness (FAO-EU-CIRAD 2022).

Within EBRD’s region of operation, filling the gap in innovative and climate-efficient agrifood infrastructure is key to help agrifood systems perform effectively, and face a range of increasing challenges and crises: climate change, extreme weather, shifting consumption demand, etc.).

Nonetheless, dedicated academic literature and reports tend to focus on broad categories of infrastructure, such as transport, energy, water (e.g., GIH platform, ADB 2022, WB 2019), missing specific reflections on infrastructure for the agrifood systems (irrigation, storage, markets, logistics, waste management…).

This work comes at an opportune time of infrastructure development, with a dedicated demand stimulated through economic stimulus packages such as the EU Green Deal, the COVID-19 recovery packages, and efforts to restore agricultural trade flows in the Black Sea region resulting from the war in Ukraine.

ACTIVITIES

This project combines a review of policy papers and reports from the major International Financial Institutions with first-hand evidence from a survey of agribusiness companies in Egypt, Serbia and Uzbekistan.

 

Its findings will inform global discussion, and support private and public investment decisions.

Innovative results comprise: a specific definition, a conceptual framework,

and key performance indicators of economic, environmental, and social performance to guide private and public investment decisions.

RECENT PROJECTS

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PROJECTS

Greening Kyrgyzstan’s Economy: Know More, Act Better, Enhance Results

Facilitating agrifood investment in the energy-water-land nexus in Central Asia

Reforming Tunisia’s Grain Sector to Enhance Supply Chain Resilience

Adding A Splash of Value to Tunisian Olive Oil

Containing the Risks of African Swine Fever in South-eastern Europe

Defining the path towards climate-efficient agrifood system infrastructure

Filling Food Security Gaps in SEMED Supply Pipelines

A More Resilient Food Secure Future in the SEMED Region

Reducing Risks in SEMED Food Security Supply Chains

Improving Traditional Livelihoods with Modern Technology in Kazakhstan

Morocco Olive Oil Production Steps Up to the Plate

Carbon Neutrality: Utopia or The New Green Wave?

A Digital Transition to Safer Food Systems through e-phyto certificates

Putting Georgia’s Traditional Foods on the Culinary Roadmap

A Fresh Approach to Diversifying Agrifood Exports in the Western Balkans

Raising the Stakes for Quality Standards in Montenegro and Serbia

Diversifying Markets for Eastern European and Central Asian Horticulture

Building Back Shorter in Value Chains

Green Horticulture in a Digital Climate

A Taste for Quality Tea in Azerbaijan and Georgia

Linking youth innovation to value chain aggregators in the agrifood sector

The Resilience Pathway: Evolution of Food Distribution Systems during COVID-19

Putting Agricultural Resilience into Serbia’s Irrigation Pipelines

Reimagining the Future of Food for the Cities

Developing a Taste for West Bank and Gaza Olive Oil

Supporting Jordan’s Olive Oil Sector to be Resilient, Competitive and Profitable

Investing in Food Loss and Waste: What’s in it for Development Banks?

A Green Deal for Morocco’s Fruit and Vegetable Export Markets

Jordan’s Traditional Foods Added to the Development Menu

Creating a Buzz for Turkish Pine Honey

Serving up Egypt’s Fruits and Vegetables to the International Markets

A Public-private Recipe for More Efficient Wheat Imports in Egypt