Is "urban vs. rural" still a useful way to see the world? In many cases probably not. A thread on why the most common population classification in development policy can be also one of the most misleading. 🧵
Andrea Cattaneo
@andrcatt.bsky.social
Engineer turned economist, working on agrifood systems & dabbling with geospatial analysis. I lead FAO's State of Food and Agric. flagship report (SOFA). Formerly @IFPRI and @OECD Interests: #RuralUrban #Resilience #FoodSystems #Geography Views my own
Redirecting $385bn in harmful subsidies could fully fund global regenerative and agroecological transitions. Discover the solutions and pathways. Read the report: https://futureoffood.org/publication-library/raft-catalyzing-finance-action/ #agroecology
📢 New @FAO report finds that around 1.7 billion people live in areas where land degradation limits crop yields. We can avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation with targeted policies and strengthened institutions. 🌱 👉 Interactive Story: www.fao.org/interactive/... #SOFA2025 #LandDegradation
Addressing land degradation for a sustainable future
Did you know that nearly 1.7 billion people live in areas where land degradation is cutting crop yields and threatening food security? The #SOFA2025 interactive story looks at how we can address land ...
fao.org
🌍✨ New Paper Out! Learn how to analyze properties of any City-Region in the world with a click of your mouse. openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/c...
“#Power is often absent from conversations about food systems.”— Olivier De Schutter, @ipes-food.org These words resonated at our recent Global Convening on #FoodSystemsTransformation. Explore more powerful quotes ⬇️ 📩 Subscribe to hear more from the convening—coming soon: bit.ly/GA_subscribe
Absolutely and totally sick
Andrea Cattaneo@andrcatt.bsky.social · last yr.1/ 🚀Big Update❗❗ Last year we published @NatCities, a systematic analysis of how countries are organized around multiple urban centres. That geospatial dataset is very complex. So we just launched the City-Region Explorer🔎... an easy to use platform for analysis. 🧵 #EconSky #Geography #GISChat
Thanks! It is a great tool for PhD students because it helps leverage a novel geospatial dataset. We hope folks will find it helpful. A week from the launch we have a lot of interest from international financial institutions.
Will Masters@willmasters.bsky.social · last yr.Impressive thread, great use of video -- paging #EconSky & #TeachEcon for both data and methods. Thank you Andrea!
1/ 🚀Big Update❗❗ Last year we published @NatCities, a systematic analysis of how countries are organized around multiple urban centres. That geospatial dataset is very complex. So we just launched the City-Region Explorer🔎... an easy to use platform for analysis. 🧵 #EconSky #Geography #GISChat
Our new paper shows how critical it is to use reliable data to achieve effective targeting and use of development resources: doi.org/10.1038/s414.... Sadly, the source of these data was terminated a few weeks ago. Draw your own conclusions...
Want a cheap & sustainable healthy diet? New preprint confirms that less expensive options generally emit less GHGs. Main exception is animal source foods. The least emitting healthy diets cost ~$7/day and emit 0.7 kg CO2e, while actual choices cost ~$10 and emit 2.4 kg. arxiv.org/abs/2505.24457
I think the current state of social science research is pretty bad and I wrote something for @asteriskmag.bsky.social about it. asteriskmag.com/issues/10/ca...
SAVE THE DATE❕❕ June 3rd📅 Link to register: fao.zoom.us/webinar/regi... Link to join: fao.zoom.us/s/9833663912...
This posting will close in two2️⃣days... ⏳ Please consider applying or distribute in your network. This is a great job, working on major agrifood issues Topic changes yearly and you interact with world experts on a given theme. Our team also has a good publication record in peer-reviewed journals.
Andrea Cattaneo@andrcatt.bsky.social · last yr.Deadline May 8th. 💢 Join FAO's State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) Team 💢 Exciting opportunity! 👀 Ideal candidates combine strong analytical skills with expertise in agrifood systems and excellent communication abilities. jobs.fao.org/careersectio...
Deadline May 8th. 💢 Join FAO's State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) Team 💢 Exciting opportunity! 👀 Ideal candidates combine strong analytical skills with expertise in agrifood systems and excellent communication abilities. jobs.fao.org/careersectio...
Economist
Click the link provided to see the complete job description.
jobs.fao.org
@jennxer.bsky.social opens the True Cost Accounting Global Summit, hosted by @fao.org! As Jenn said in her opening remarks: "This is our moment to align, commit, and act. The future of food systems depends on it." #TCAGlobalSummit2025 #scalingtca
New paper uses lowest-cost healthy diets in each country plus alternative definitions of other basic needs to measure the extent and depth of global poverty. Great work from @jonasstl.bsky.social & coauthors @unigoettingen.bsky.social, much needed for #TeachEcon #EconSky & #FoodSky
Global poverty and the cost of a healthy diet
Access to a healthy diet is a fundamental human need, yet a significant portion of the global population faces barriers to realizing it. Conventional …
sciencedirect.com
A real pity. Farmers are not happy, and children will lose out on a healthier diet. www.morningagclips.com/usda-cancels...
USDA Cancels Local Food Funding
The Iowa Farmers Union is deeply alarmed disappointed by the USDA’s sudden termination of state contracts for the 2025 Local Food funding
morningagclips.com
The UN Statistical Commission #UN56SC has just formally adopted the Minimum Dietary Diversity (MDD) score as a global diet quality indicator. Measurement is a first step for action, using #FoodPricesForNutrition and other data to lower costs, improve access, and provide healthy diets for all.
New SDG indicator on Minimum Dietary Diversity adopted by UN Statistical Commission
FAO assumes joint custodianship of indicator seen as key to ending malnutrition
fao.org
Happy to share this piece I wrote (with input from @ipes-food.org colleagues) as a counter to the recent call for more technological 'moonshots' to end hunger. No amount of technology can ensure people are well fed - we need political will to tackle inequities theconversation.com/only-politic...
Only political will can end world hunger: Food isn’t scarce, but many people can’t access it
Massive political efforts are needed to tackle the root causes of hunger – conflict, poverty, inequality. Technology alone is not sufficient.
theconversation.com
My thanks to Preet for leading this effort. Great collaboration and happy to see this out!
Preet Lidder@lidderpr.bsky.social · 2y agoOur latest paper explores how #innovation and #technology can drive resilient & inclusive rural transformation. We identify 5 levers of change that are particularly important for traditional and transitional agri- #foodsystems prevalent in LMICs. @andrcatt.bsky.social
As more people join Bluesky, I am updating my starter pack on food systems with a focus on research and policy... go.bsky.app/LKK6nBq
#Repurposing and #budget_optimization belong to an important agenda and governments need technical support to bring it down to implementation, to which @fao.org ao has paid attention. Thank you @iisd.bsky.social for helping raise awareness on this important issue.
International Institute for Sustainable Development@iisd.org · 2y agoTransforming agri-policies is crucial for lower-income nations, but optimizing tight budgets and public support remain challenges 💸 🤝 @fao.org’s Marco V. Sanchez highlights how repurposing agricultural support can drive transformation in these countries: iisd.org/articles/pol...
New Countdown Initiative paper which: - Presents the first indicator monitoring update across 5 themes (more below) - Provides an expert elicitation of interactions across indicators. - Reviews literature & country case studies Paper: tinyurl.com/CountdownMS Website: tinyurl.com/countdownweb...
New blog! To help non-specialists understand food policies, we created an AI-based chatbot. Users can ask questions about food policy in Bangladesh and get plain-language answers back, drawing on 28 policy documents. Check out the blog explaining it here: www.gainhealth.org/media/news/c...
Can AI Chatbots Help Demystify Food Policies?
Using OpenAI LLM (GPT-4o) and embedding models, GAIN developed a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)-based chatbot and connected it to a database of 28 publicly accessible food and nutrition policy d...
gainhealth.org
A little bit of recharging before kicking off 2025... with homemade cookies on the slopes. Happy New Year to everyone!!
Ahead of #Christmas our last @fao.org Agricultural Development Economics Working Paper 24-07 “The opportunity cost of not #repurposing public expenditure in food and agriculture in sub‑Saharan African countries”. Background to #SOFI2024. @andrcatt.bsky.social 👉 doi.org/10.4060/cd37...
How do public policies stack up? Is the impact of two policies larger than the sum of its parts? We look at this in the context of food - labels + price policies - & find they are *extremely* sub-additive. Also, labels do way better than prices. Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🧵
