It is now widely acknowledged that biotechnology will have significant implications for development. While biotechnology's potential for low income economies is still the subject of controversy, this paper argues that it is precisely in these countries that food and agriculture related...

Following an overview on the fast changing global context of agriculture, and food and nutrition security, this paper provides a framework for identifying the set of essential international public goods for a well-functioning world agriculture and food system: natural resource management related...

Hunger has become ever more complex, and therefore efforts to sustainably eradicate hunger and malnutrition depend on policies and programs that match these complexities. Innovations are critical for progress. However, they require increased public and private investments as well. Key elements...

Artificial intelligence and robotics (AI/R) have the potential to result in great change of livelihoods. While individual impacts of AI/R on, for instance, employment, have been subject to a lot of research, how AI/R may affect the poor is scarce. This paper aims to draw attention to how AI/R...

The UN Food Systems Summit 2021 was different from all six previous food summits held in the past eight decades. New features of this Summit included the fact that it was anchored in the Sustainable Development Goals, focused on food systems, was based on multi-stakeholder engagement, had a...

This dissertation is an empirical investigation of the implications of the Indonesian oil palm sector for rural village communities located in Jambi province, on the island of Sumatra. It consists of three contributions to the scientific literature on land-use dynamics, economic development, and...

Global demand for food and agricultural products is on the rise. There is hence the need to increase production to meet this growing demand and smallholders will play a significant role. One strategy for smallholders to sustainably increase agricultural production is the use of modern...

Oil palm has become one of the most rapidly expanding crops throughout the humid tropics. Over the last two decades, the area under oil palm has almost tripled and its production more than quadrupled. This development is mainly attributed to the rising demand for vegetable oils and biofuels,...