This publication supports the AgrInvest-Food Systems project by analyzing Kenya’s national food system through food systems and political economy approach. These approaches resulted in mapping and linking Kenya’s food system outcomes and challenges, structural factors and drivers, sustainability challenges, and institutions and actors. These analyses led to the identification of two promising value chains for SDG-aligned investments, namely indigenous vegetables and aquaculture, and of the bottlenecks that currently impede more investments in Kenya.

This technical note was written by the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) as part of the project “AgrInvest-Food Systems: Enabling inclusive and efficient private sector investment in agri-food systems”, implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in partnership with the ECDPM. The AgrInvest-Food Systems Project (AgrInvest-FS) aims at attracting private investment into agrifood systems aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by leveraging public funds. The note applies a systematic approach to the five agrivalue chains over the four countries covered in the AgrInvest-FS project, to identify relevant financing instruments and relevant types of financing institutions, which could potentially be interested in financing a segment of the value chain.

Food systems are intimately linked to our lives – through the food we eat, our nutrition and health, our livelihoods, jobs, and the environment and natural resources of the planet. The main challenge for food systems is to produce nutritious food for all while preserving our biodiversity and environment and ensuring equitable distribution of wealth. This Food Systems Profile provides a summary of the main food system issues in Kenya and highlights potential solutions for their sustainable and inclusive transformation. It is the result of a systemic analysis and stakeholders' consultation that was part of a global assessment of food systems in over 50 countries, following a joint initiative by the European Union, FAO, and CIRAD which aims at catalysing the sustainable and inclusive transformation of food systems.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Food price volatility is one of the major challenges facing current and future global food systems. Since 2006, global food prices have fluctuated greatly around an increasing trend and price spikes were observed for key food commodities such as rice, wheat, and maize. The full or partial transmission of these global food price changes to individual developing countries, together with domestic food price changes, caused by domestic factors such as extreme weather events and market disruptions, caused governments to respond in a variety of ways. While there is ample description of the nature, content, and causes of food price fluctuations during the last 5 to 7 years, very little is known about the processes that led to policy responses or the relative power and behaviour of the participating stakeholder groups. Understanding how and why governments responded as they did is important to enhance the existing knowledge of the political economy of food price policy and to assist governments in their policy-making as they confront future food price fluctuations. This book presents results from political economy studies of food price policy in 14 developing countries as well as the United States and the European Union.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. The current structure of the global food system is increasingly recognized as unsustainable. In addition to the environmental impacts of agricultural production, unequal patterns of food access and availability are contributing to non-communicable diseases in middle- and high-income countries and inadequate caloric intake and dietary diversity among the world's poorest. To this end, there have been a growing number of academic and policy initiatives aimed at advancing food system transformation, including the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and several UN Climate conferences. Yet, the policy pathways for achieving a transformed food system are highly contested, and the enabling conditions for implementation are frequently absent. Furthermore, a broad range of polarizing factors affect decisions over the food system at domestic and international levels - from debates over values and (mis)information, to concerns over food self-sufficiency, corporate influence, and human rights. This volume explicitly analyses the political economy dynamics of food system transformation with contributors who span several disciplines, including economics, ecology, geography, nutrition, political science, and public policy. The chapters collectively address the range of interests, institutions, and power in the food system, the diversity of coalitions that form around food policy issues and the tactics they employ, the ways in which policies can be designed and sequenced to overcome opposition to reform, and processes of policy adaptation and learning. Drawing on original surveys, interviews, empirical modelling, and case studies from China, the European Union, Germany, Mexico, South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the United States, the book touches on issues as wide ranging as repurposing agricultural subsidies, agricultural trade, biotechnology innovations, red meat consumption, sugar-sweetened beverage taxes, and much more.

Across the world, food systems and agricultural systems are changing at a phenomenal rate. Widespread restructuring has not been confined to the production and distribution of food, though; many regions and even nations are undergoing social, political, and economic transformation as well. Bringing together twelve essays by scholars from a number of disciplines, I this timely book documents the interdependence of food systems, nation states, and the world economy. Stressing the political foundations of global agro-food systems, it sheds light on such complex questions as whether today's changes in food and agrarian systems anticipate a new world order, or are merely efforts to preserve an old order in crisis.

'There should be a good market for this book. The topic is very timely and a major theme of the new World Development Report 2008. The editors and contributors are world class.'Derek Byerlee, World Bank'This is a topic of wide interest and high policy importance. The depth of coverage and excellent synthesis should ensure that the book will have a substantial market in high-level undergraduate and graduate courses in agricultural development. It will have a solid readership among development economists and policy makers as well.'Mark Rosegrant, International Food Policy Research InstituteThe driving forces of income growth, demographic shifts, globalization and technical change have led to a reorganization of food systems from farm to plate. The characteristics of supply chains - particularly the role of supermarkets - linking farmers have changed, from consumption and retail to wholesale, processing, procurement and production. This has had a dramatic effect on smallholder farmers, particularly in developing countries. This book presents a comprehensive framework for assessing the impacts of changing agri-food systems on smallholder farmers, recognizing the importance of heterogeneity between developing countries as well as within them. The book includes a number of case studies from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, which are used to illustrate differences in food systems' characteristics and trends. The country case studies explore impacts on the small farm sector across different countries, local contexts and farm types.Published with FAO

This book tackles the central question of the political and structural changes and characteristics that govern agriculture and food. Original contributions explore this highly globalized economic sector by analyzing salient geographical regions and sub

Kenya is desperately seeking opportunities for higher incomes and productive employment. Its population is among the fastest growing in the world, and the key to economic growth lies in the productivity of its farmers. The authors spent two years doing field work in Kenya and collecting data. Their book provides a microeconomic perspective on opportunities for income and employment growth, especially for small farms. The authors emphasize the impact of government policies on production incentives to show how policy changes might lead to greater incomes. Kenyan agricultural policy targets three kinds of changes in farming practices—increasing the area devoted to cash crop production, improving the efficiency of processing and transportation so that farm-gate prices will rise, and increasing the use of purchased inputs, such as fertilizer.