The Board for International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD) is a presidentially appointed seven-member advisory board to USAID established in 1975 under Title XII of the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended, to ensure that USAID brings the assets of U.S. universities to bear on the development challenges in agriculture, nutrition, and food security and supports their representation in USAID programming. BIFAD's thought leadership and ability to convene the U.S. university and research communities, along with international partners, positions the Board to develop evidence-based recommendations on pertinent issues of global importance.
The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report demonstrates that climate change already has a widespread impact and that those impacts are intensifying. Climate change profoundly impacts the food and agriculture system, with climate-related extremes already stressing production systems and negatively affecting livelihoods, and food and nutritional security. Vulnerable groups, such as women, youth, children, Indigenous Peoples, and other minority groups will face the most severe impacts of climate change due to unequal access and control over resources. At the same time, agriculture is one of the few sectors that offers potential for both mitigating emissions and removing carbon from the atmosphere.
