Agricultural Technology for Sustainable Development

A/RES/76/200View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 20 Sustainable development, published in 2021.

What other versions does this mandate have?

6 versions · 2016–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/80/133

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2025	A/RES/80/133	Agricultural technology for sustainable development	5,379	77%Compare
2023	A/RES/78/144	Agricultural technology for sustainable development	5,177	21%Compare
2022	A/RES/76/200	Agricultural technology for sustainable development	4,240	85%Compare
2020	A/RES/74/215	Agricultural technology for sustainable development	3,720	60%Compare
2018	A/RES/72/215	Agricultural technology for sustainable development	2,967	55%Compare

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

4 reports · 2017–2025

Year	Symbol	Title	Mandate resolution
2025	A/80/377	Agricultural technology for sustainable development report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/78/144
2023	A/78/228	Agricultural technology for sustainable development : leaving no one behind report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/76/200
2021	A/76/227	Agriculture technology for sustainable development : leaving no one behind report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/74/215
2017	A/72/216	Agricultural technology for sustainable development report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/70/198

What subjects does this mandate have?

5 subjects

Agricultural Development Agricultural Engineering Agricultural Innovations Agricultural Policy Sustainable Agriculture

What’s in this document?

26 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General;¹⁷

¹⁷A/76/227.

Urges Member States, relevant United Nations organizations and other stakeholders to strengthen efforts to improve the development of sustainable agricultural technologies and their transfer and dissemination under mutually agreed terms to developing countries, especially the least developed countries, in particular at the bilateral and regional levels, and encourages international, regional and national efforts to strengthen capacity and foster the utilization of local know-how in developing countries, especially that of smallholder and family farmers, in particular rural women and youth, in order to enhance the productivity and nutritional quality of food crops and animal products, promote sustainable practices in pre-harvest and post-harvest agricultural activities and enhance food security and nutrition-related programmes and policies that take into consideration the specific needs of women, young children and youth, with particular attention to securing the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, strengthening progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals;

Recognizes the important role of family farming and smallholder farming in contributing to the achievement of food security and improved nutrition and the role that family farms play in contributing to global food security, poverty eradication and sustainability, as well as job creation, and in ending chronic child malnutrition, and that agricultural technologies should be adapted to the needs of small- and medium-scale family farmers and combined with credit access for sustainable production and significant investment in rural infrastructure as well as the training and education of those who would most benefit from them;

Calls upon Member States and relevant United Nations organizations and other stakeholders to mainstream gender perspectives into agricultural policies and projects and to focus on closing the gender gap by, inter alia, encouraging gender-balanced investments and innovation in small-scale agricultural production and distribution, and a gender-responsive value chain supported by integrated and multisectoral policies, in order to improve women’s productive capacity and incomes, strengthen their resilience and achieve equitable access to all forms of financing, markets and networks, labour-saving technologies and agricultural technology information and know-how, equipment, decision-making forums and associated agricultural resources to ensure that agriculture, food security and nutrition-related programmes and policies take into consideration the specific needs of women and the barriers that women face in accessing agricultural inputs and resources;

Encourages Governments to develop and implement youth-focused agricultural development projects and programmes, including through training, education, financial inclusion services, including microcredit services, and capacity-building, including with regard to innovation, in association with the private sector, in order to stimulate the interest and the involvement of youth in agriculture, especially in agroenvironmental sustainability through access to microcredit and capacity-strengthening, to develop agricultural technological innovation through private partnerships;

Remains concerned that agricultural innovations and technologies often bypass ageing famers, and in particular ageing women farmers, as many do not possess the financial resources or the skills to adopt new practices, and in this regard stresses the need to strengthen the capacity of ageing farmers through continued access to financial and infrastructure services and training for improved farming techniques and technologies;

Acknowledges the importance of adopting innovative and sustainable food systems by harnessing science, technology and innovation, including co-innovation, promoting participatory research, demand-driven extension and rural advisory services and increased, responsible and inclusive public and private investment, building human capacity, encouraging entrepreneurship, creating an enabling economic and institutional environment and strengthening knowledge flows, in particular between scientists and farmers, taking into account local and traditional knowledge systems, in combination with new sources of knowledge;

Invites the United Nations system and all relevant stakeholders to consider ways to make available, on mutually agreed terms, data and information relating to agriculture and food systems, including meteorology, big data, the Internet of things, satellite imagery, early warning systems and other data-based technologies, that could help to build the resilience of family farmers and smallholder producers, optimize yields and support rural livelihoods;

Recognizes that weather forecasting and climate services and products allow farmers to better plan agricultural activities, optimize production, manage climate-related risks and integrate climate change adaptation into their decisions, and therefore encourages governments and meteorological agencies to improve the collection, dissemination and analysis of agrometeorological and agroclimatological data and information;

Acknowledges that technological innovations can be supported by financial innovations and financial support, such as de-risking strategies and blended finance options, and that blended finance mechanisms are new institutional models that link public and private financing and patient capital with equity investments and promote schemes that more effectively distribute investments to small-scale enterprises and producers;

Underlines the importance of supporting and advancing research in improving and diversifying crop varieties and seed systems, as well as supporting the establishment of sustainable agricultural systems, sustainable management practices and the use of new and existing technologies, such as conservation agriculture, integrated soil fertility management, integrated farming systems, animal disease prevention and control and integrated pest management, precision agriculture, irrigation, livestock husbandry and biotechnologies, in order to make agriculture more sustainable and productive and, in particular, to make crops and farm animals more resistant to diseases, including drug-resistant infections, considering international standards in this regard, pests and environmental stresses, including the impacts of climate change, drought and extreme rainfall events, in accordance with national regulations and relevant international agreements;

Stresses the urgent need to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change, and urges Member States to continue to engage in adaptation planning processes and the implementation of mitigation actions;

Recognizes that recovery efforts from the COVID-19 pandemic present an opportunity to promote sustainability and increase resilience of agriculture and food systems to the impact of the pandemic and future crises, including through the use of technology and innovation in all its forms, including digital services that can increase access to financial services for small-scale producers and family farmers, including in rural areas, to address mobility restrictions and bank closures, agricultural extension services, weather and climate services, and online platforms that can enable producers to sell directly to consumers, leading to increased profits, improved supply chain efficiency, reduced wastage and better financial inclusion, leveraging artificial intelligence in supporting sustainable agriculture, which can help to improve the overall harvest quality and accuracy, and calls upon all relevant stakeholders to continue to develop policies, investments and partnerships that help to realize the potential of technologies to transform agriculture and food systems, while tackling the persistent digital divides, including the gender digital divide, in order to build back better and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals;

Also recognizes that sustainable agricultural mechanization can have potential drawbacks but could also help address shortages of labour, ease drudgery, increase incomes, enhance productivity and the timeliness of agricultural activities, promote efficient resource use, enable better market access and attract new investment and talent into agriculture, thereby creating better prospects for sustainable growth and support measures to mitigate climate and weather-related hazards, and acknowledges that mechanization and digitalization can also create new and higher-paying jobs in agricultural value chains, making it more attractive for youth to stay in rural areas;

Stresses the need to significantly reduce pre-harvest, post-harvest and other food losses and waste throughout the food supply chain through, inter alia, improved production planning, the promotion of resource-efficient production and processing practices, improved preservation and packing technologies, improved transportation and logistics management and enhanced household and business awareness of food losses and waste prevention, to help all actors in the value chain to enjoy greater benefits and to contribute to environmental protection;

Recognizes that energy-efficient food systems represent a key component in transitioning to sustainable food and agriculture;

Also recognizes that strengthening urban-rural linkages can improve both rural and urban food security and nutrition, and in this regard highlights the need for integrated urban and territorial agriculture land planning, improved rural-urban transportation links, food packaging technology and cold chain development to reduce food loss, and for effective trade links across the urban-rural continuum, which will contribute to ensuring that small-scale farmers and fishers are linked to local, subnational, national, regional and global value chains and markets;

Further recognizes that urban farming and agriculture can improve the food security and nutrition of, and foster income opportunities for, urban dwellers, and in this regard highlights the need to further develop agricultural technology in support of sustainable urbanization, including sustainable intensification through indoor and vertical farming, the use of automation to overcome intensive labour challenges, the innovative use of urban spaces for agriculture and the promotion of urban farming, in order to reduce hunger and malnutrition and to promote sustainable urban development;

Underlines the importance of the sustainable use and management of water resources to increase and contribute to agricultural productivity, calls upon stakeholders to promote integrated water resources management in agriculture and adapt agricultural systems to improve their overall water efficiency and water productivity, and their resilience to water stresses, inter alia, by developing and implementing adaptive water and agricultural strategies and action plans based on a comprehensive approach to the long-term availability and variability of all water sources, reducing water scarcity risks through integrated water resources management options, designing and implementing agricultural and landscape management practices that increase the resilience of agricultural systems to water stress and reduce pollution, making rain-fed agriculture systems a more reliable option, investing in an enabling environment and mobilizing the full set of tools available to them, and calls for further efforts to develop and strengthen irrigation facilities and water-saving technology, which can also enhance resilience to the current and projected adverse impacts of climate change;

Encourages Member States, civil society and public and private institutions to develop partnerships to support financial and market services, including training, capacity-building, infrastructure and extension and rural advisory services, and calls for further efforts by all stakeholders to include smallholder farmers, in particular rural women and youth, in planning and in taking decisions about making appropriate sustainable agricultural technologies and practices accessible and affordable to them, and strengthen the links between community-based initiatives and financial institutions, including through the promotion of financing tools that foster agricultural sustainability;

Recognizes the important role of information and communications technology, as well as digitalization and e-agriculture, in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, which constitute tools for improving agricultural productivity, practices and smallholder livelihoods, strengthening agricultural markets and institutions, improving agricultural extension and rural advisory services, empowering farmer communities, keeping farmers and rural entrepreneurs informed about agricultural innovations, weather conditions, input availability, financial services and market prices and connecting them with buyers, and stresses the need to ensure the access of women and youth to information and communications technology, digitalization and e-agriculture, especially in rural areas;

Calls upon Member States to include sustainable agricultural development as an integral part of their national policies and strategies, notes the positive impact that North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation can have in this regard, and urges the relevant bodies of the United Nations system to include elements of agricultural technology, research and development in efforts to realize the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,¹⁸ with a focus on the research and development of technology that is affordable, durable and sustainable and that can be easily used by and disseminated to smallholder farmers, in particular rural women and ageing farmers;

¹⁸Resolution 70/1.

Requests relevant United Nations organizations, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, to promote, support and facilitate the exchange of experience among Member States through, inter alia, recommendations and other public goods related to ways to promote sustainable agriculture and increase the adaptive capacity of agriculture and the use of a broad range of agricultural technologies that support more sustainable food systems, build long-term fertility, healthy and resilient agroecosystems and secure livelihoods and have a positive impact on the entire value chain, including technology for post-harvest crop storage, processing, handling and transportation, including in pressing environmental circumstances;

Underlines the instrumental role of agricultural technology, agricultural research and innovation and technology transfer on mutually agreed terms and the sharing of knowledge and practices in furthering sustainable development and in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, calls, therefore, upon Member States, and encourages relevant international bodies, to support sustainable agricultural research and development, emphasizes that research outputs should be appropriate to the needs of and accessible to end users, including governments, water managers, large-scale private sector enterprises and smallholder farmers, and in this regard calls for continued support to the international agricultural research system, including the research centres of CGIAR and other relevant international organizations and initiatives;

Stresses the importance of indicators that can be used to formulate targeted policies towards the adoption of agricultural technology and to measure their impact on the Sustainable Development Goals, and in this regard encourages Member States, in cooperation with all relevant stakeholders, to continue to contribute to the ongoing work of the Statistical Commission on the global indicator framework;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its seventy-eighth session, within existing resources, an action-oriented report that examines the current technological trends and key advances in agricultural technologies, provides illustrative examples of the transformative use of technologies at scale and includes recommendations that assist Member States in accelerating their efforts to implement the relevant goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda, and decides to include in the provisional agenda of its seventy-eighth session the item entitled “Sustainable development”.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

Table of contents