Formed in 2007, Food Plant Solutions Rotary Action Group (FPS) creates science-based educational materials, which: identify highly nutritious local food plants, explain how to grow them in a sustainable, agroecological way, detail the nutritional value of the plants and describe why human bodies require those nutrients. The resources created by FPS allows people to better...

This book documents a unique series of 19 case studies where agricultural biotechnologies were used to serve the needs of smallholders in developing countries. They cover different regions, production systems, species and underlying socio-economic conditions in the crop (seven case studies), livestock (seven) and aquaculture/fisheries (five) sectors. Most of the...

The Aso Grasslands are located in Aso region of Kumamoto Prefecture, which situates in the middle of the Kyushu Island in Japan. Aso region spreads around active volcanic craters and huge caldera. The Aso volcano has one of the world’s largest caldera stretching 18 km from east to west and...

“Chagusaba”(“semi-natural grasslands”) represents an exemplary system of traditional agricultural techniques, where grasslands are maintained around tea fields to supply mulch that improves the quality of tea cultivation. Chagusaba is a rare example of codependence between agricultural production and biodiversity, each of which enhances the other’s value (See Photo 1). For...

In the wake of the food crises of the early 1970s and the resulting World Food Conference of 1974, a group of innovators realized that food security depends not only on agricultural production, but also on the policies that affect food systems from farm to table. In response, the International...

Agricultural mechanization is a crucial input to agricultural crop production. It is frequently very capital intensive, compared to other (usually annual) inputs and it has repercussions on the efficiency of all other inputs used in crop production, including seeds, fertilizer, water, and time/labour. It is also much more complex in...

In the westernmost region of the Caroline Islands of Micronesia lies the Republic of Palau. Palauan traditional farming shows how agriculture, family values and culture are interconnected. Despite these connections, family farms are facing challenges. By joining forces, the small-scale family farms of these islands are standing up for their...

The proposed GIAHS in the Kunisaki Peninsula Usa area is a system where forestry and agricultural production are made possible and are sustain by the connected system of Sawtooth Oak forests and multiple interlinked irrigation ponds.

Jeju island is a volcanic island located in the southernmost part of the Korean Peninsula. The topographic and geological characteristics of the volcanic island made Jeju, the barren island for farming. Jeju abundant with volcanic ash soil, rocks and winds. As farming started in Jeju, people utilized the stones in...

This guide is the first on the practical application of FAO’s “Save and Grow” model of agriculture to specific smallholder crops and farming systems. It comes as cassava production intensifies worldwide, and growers shift from traditional cultivation practices to monocropping, higher-yielding genotypes, and greater use of agrochemicals. Intensification carries great...

Agricultural Research for Development (ARD) in the Asia-Pacific region is effectively promoted and facilitated through novel partnerships among NARS and other related organizations so that it contributes to sustainable improvements in the productivity of agricultural systems and to the quality of the natural resource base that underpins agriculture, thereby enhancing...

About 70–80 percent of all those actors involved in fish farming worldwide are considered small-scale. The small-scale aquaculture (SSA) sector, is recognized as making an important contribution to food security, poverty alleviation and socio- economic development. However, assessing its contribution in a systematic way has been an uphill task. An...

家庭农场，一个起源于欧美的舶来名词；在中国，它类似于种养大户的升级版。通常定义为：以家庭成员为主要劳动力，从事农业规模化、集约化、商品化生产经营，并以农业收入为家庭主要收入来源的新型农业经营主体。[1]  家庭农场是指以家庭成员为主要劳动力，从事农业规模化、集约化、商品化生产经营，并以农业收入为家庭主要收入来源的新型农业经营主体。2008年的党的十七届三中全会报告第一次将家庭农场作为农业规模经营主体之一提出。随后，2013年中央“一号文件”再次提到家庭农场，称鼓励和支持承包土地向专业大户、家庭农场、农民合作社流转。 [2]  2013年中央一号文件提出，坚持依法自愿有偿的原则，引导农村土地承包经营权有序流转，鼓励和支持承包土地向专业大户、家庭农场、农民合作社流转，发展多种形式的适度规模经营。

Stimulated by work pioneered in Bangladesh, the paper outlines a conceptual framework for using poultry as a tool in poverty alleviation. There is now evidence from several coun- tries that small poultry enterprises with adequate institutional support targeting the poorest rural women and their families can help them take the...

Scientific evidence is mounting that rangeland degradation is intensifying and expanding in China’s rangelands, as a consequence of 30 years of inappropriate policies, as well as climate change. Such policies have simultaneously brought negative impacts to herder livelihoods and to the development of pastoral society. Policies have included grasslands property...

The objective of the Market and Pasture Management Development Project is to reduce poverty and improve livelihoods of nomadic herder households and households living in permanent settlements in soums (districts) and aimags (provinces). The project focuses on three components: • Market development• Pasture management• climate change adaptation The project is aligned with Mongolia's Agricultural Development Strategy...

The lost decades for China in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s look remarkably like the lost decades of Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. Poor land rights, weak incentives, incomplete markets and inappropriate investment portfolios. However, China burst out of its stagnation in the 1980s and has enjoyed three decades...

Gender inequalities and discrimination are the major causes of persistent food and nutrition insecurity in the Asia-Pacific region. Sustained efforts to support gender equality are needed to achieve food and nutrition security.

Fish and fishery products make an enormous contribution to the nutrition and wellbeing of the peoples of Asia and the Pacific region, possibly exceeding their contribution in any other region of the world. The quantities produced and the sheer diversity of species and products from inland and marine waters that...

ICARDA is pleased to share the scaling out of some important research outcomes and their impacts in 2013. For example, the innovative adaptation of raised bed machines to small-scale farming – developed with farmers and private sector in Sharkia province in Egypt – delivers a 24% saving in irrigation water...