Dairy farms in Austria are rather small - 64 tons of milk quote per farm in 2008 -           Half of the dairy farmers held less than 40 tons of milk quota -          Definitely less milk cows than in many other EU-countries -          Smaller farms show higher production costs „ Conclusion: smaller farms are less...

This Working Document provides practical guidelines for upgrading agricultural retail markets in rural areas and analyses the strategic potential of upgrading as an important component of rural development. This document presents methodological steps for the design and implementation of appropriate programmes, rather than a single model to replicate. The objective is to propose...

Food systems of Indigenous Peoples who retain connection to long-evolved cultures and patterns of living in local ecosystems present a treasure of knowledge that contributes to well-being and health, and can benefit all humankind. This book seeks to define and describe the diversity in food system use, nutrition and health...

This paper uses a newly constructed cross-country database composed of comparable income aggregates to examine the full range of income generating activities carried out by rural households. The analysis paints a clear picture of multiple activities across rural space in countries on all four continents, though less so in the...

Water productivity in smallholder rain-fed agriculture is of key interest for improved food and livelihood security. A frequently advocated approach to enhance water productivity is to adopt water harvesting and conservation technologies (WH). This study estimates water availability for potential in situ WH, and supplemental water demand (SWD) in smallholder...

This paper examines the links between the assets and the economic activities of rural households in developing countries to provide insight into how the promotion of certain key assets—particularly education, land, and infrastructure—influences the economic choices of these households. Nationally representative data from 15 countries which form part of the...

Organic agriculture has been rapidly growing for over a decade and information on certified organic agriculture production and trade is now available for 138 countries. Certified organic areas included 32 million hectares in 2007 – one third of which being arable land and permanent crops, and two-third being permanent pastures...

This joint working paper lays out a rationale and strategic framework for improving food security and managing food-price shocks in the Arab countries. The paper does not provide country specific policy and project recommendations. Such recommendations will follow from the country by country application of the framework, taking into account...

This paper is a shorter, more recent version of an earlier working paper, and uses RIGA data to describe participation in and income shares from the different income generating activities across rural households in different developing countries.

In an effort to improve the food security of rural households and to foster equitable economic growth and development, the Government of Swaziland and FAO, with funding from the European Union (EU), work together to boost agricultural productivity, while at the same time reversing environmental degradation. Smallholder agriculture is a...

The guidelines resulting from this report are principally directed towards sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where the lack of farm power and appropriate machinery is having a deleterious effect on rural livelihoods. The farm power and machinery supply chain includes a range of stakeholders from manufacturers and importers through dealers, hire service...

The PRONAF is a governmental program that subsidies the credit for investment to smallholder farming and improves the social development in Brazil. This research was carried out to evaluate the effect of increasing the values of credit for investment used for the PRONAF farmers in semi-arid areas, and their impact...

La presente publicación parte de una premisa ineludible: La comunicación es clave para promover el desarrollo rural sostenible y la Comunicación para el Desarrollo (CpD), un enfoque que integra varios procesos y métodos participativos de comunicación, información y gestión del conocimiento y el uso integrado de medios locales y de...

Les agriculteurs de l'Androy, région rurale très enclavée, située à l'extrême Sud de Madagascar, soumis à des crises alimentaires récurrentes, cherchent à diversifier leurs activités économiques et à compléter leurs faibles revenus issus de l'agriculture. Les producteurs valorisent alors leurs ressources agroalimentaires et leurs savoir-faire artisanaux pour développer des activités économiques....

La Red para la Gestión Territorial de Desarrollo Rural Sustentable es una iniciativa de cooperación para la gestión del conocimiento en torno a las políticas públicas para el desarrollo rural sustentable en México. Creada en 2009, la Red GTD destaca por sus aportes a la generación de conocimiento sobre la...

The Arab countries account for more than 5 per cent of the world’s population, but less than 1 per cent of global water resources. And as a consequence of the phenomena associated with climate change, the region is facing an even greater water shortage. For 30 years now, IFAD and...

Poverty among the 22 members of the League of Arab States (LAS) is primarily a rural phenomenon. Established in 1945, the LAS promotes and coordinates integration among its 22 member states and strengthens cooperation at all levels: political, security, economic, social and cultural. IFAD is highly supportive of this process...

Permanent pastures are therein defined as utilized agricultural area used permanently for 5 or more years through cultivation (sowing) of grass fodder crops or through natural regeneration and is not included in the farm crop rotation. This area can be used for either grazing or mowing. All grass species that...

Estonia falls into the Nemoral and Boreal biogeographical zones – regions naturally dominated by coniferous forests, with extensive mires. Farmers in at least certain parts in Estonia, as in other countries in these zones, traditionally made use of all the possible forage resources available to them to tide their animals...

Proposing a coherent and unified definition of permanent pastures in France is not easy in the detail neither from technical nor from administrative point of view. Starting from usual and specialised dictionaries, the definition of a “pasture” shows a certain blur between a general definition in which a pasture is...