New FAO guide shows how to grow more with fewer resources

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), based in Rome, has released a publication titled "Optimization and Minimization: Towards sustainable plant production". It calls on countries to change how crops are grown: boosting productivity and resilience while using fewer resources and limiting crop losses and pollution. FAO describes the approach as "producing more with less for the betters". The topic matters because plant production supplies more than 80 percent of the calories people consume.

Who it is for

The sourcebook is aimed at government officials and decision makers, farmers, crop systems practitioners (in industry, academia, research, civil society and grassroots organizations), development partners and other stakeholders working to transform agrifood systems.

Key findings and topics

FAO notes that global agrifood systems face increasingly interconnected demographic, environmental and climatic pressures. Plant pests destroy up to 40 percent of global crop production each year. Plant production is expected to provide about 80 percent of the additional food needed by 2050.

The publication sets out a systems-based approach linking five areas: seed systems, cropping systems, integrated plant pest management, agricultural mechanization, and agricultural extension and advisory services. Together they determine whether farmers can obtain quality seed, apply science-based practices adapted to local conditions, manage pests while limiting unnecessary pesticide use, use labour and other resources more efficiently, and access needed knowledge, technologies and skills. Other topics include pesticide management and digitalization.

FAO Director-General QU Dongyu writes in the foreword that a transition toward sustainable plant production is essential, one that optimizes productivity while preserving the environment.

The modular sourcebook supports the shift to systems that produce more with less, as set out in the FAO Strategic Framework 2022–31, especially in low-input smallholder systems. The framework rests on four "betters": better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life.