Agricultural value chains and sustainable development: linking local and global dynamics - AC&SD 2016

The year 2015 marked a major political and diplomatic milestone. The three international summits held in Addis Ababa on financing for development, in New York at the United Nations with the adoption of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in Paris by the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with a universal climate agreement, are forging a global, renewed and ambitious framework for action on sustainable development by complementing each other.
With a view to implementing this global framework, CIRAD, in partnership with a wide range of partners, is organising the international scientific conference "Agricultural Sectors and Sustainable Development" in Montpellier from 12 to 14 December 2016.
The world’s agricultures are at the heart of global challenges: on the one hand, they are a threat to the environment; on the other, they are major levers for food supply and security, poverty reduction, employment, health and the energy transition. They are just as important for cultivating biodiversity, facilitating climate change, avoiding pollution, desertification and resource scarcity.
In a context of globalisation driven by more intense trade and financial flows, globalised health risks and rapidly changing food behaviour, tropical commodity chains - links between agriculture and other economic sectors - are undergoing profound technical, economic and social transformations. Faced with the environmental and social concerns raised by their expansion, the sectors are increasingly initiating sustainable development approaches.