Most of the poor in the developing countries are smallholder farmers. Improving their productivity is essential for reducing poverty. Despite small landholdings, a high degree of land fragmentation, and rising labor costs, agricultural production in China has steadily increased. If one treats the farm household as the unit of analysis,...

This paper seeks to build on and provide empirical evidence concerning a: over the long term, in most of tropical Asia and Southeast Asia, it is not large farms that replace small ones, since, on the contrary, what is clearly occurring is a transition from plantation to smallholders for an...

Since 1945, FAO and the Government of the Philippines have demonstrated a strong commitment to working together towards the eradication of hunger and poverty. FAO established a representation in the country in 1978 and continues to support the Government’s priorities for agriculture, fisheries, forestry and rural development, including nutrition. Recent...

The diversity of agriculture in the world reflects the immense variety of societies and natural environments on the planet. Indeed, agricultural systems range from various types of shifting slash-and-burn practices – sometimes very similar to those of the first sedentary human groups – to quasi-automated agricultures in some regions of...

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...

More and more people are moving towards urban areas for various reasons. This has also increased the demand for food while putting pressure on scarce resources. Urban life styles and food preferences also influence the type of food grown and the way it is grown to meet the growing urban...

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...

The objective of this project is to improve livelihoods and income-generating opportunities for poor and vulnerable groups through an integrated approach to development. The project is in line with the government's Five-Year Plan for 2011-2015, which calls for harmonized growth enabling poor populations to benefit from China's overall economic and...

Land degradation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is believed to be expanding at an alarming rate, accompanied by the lowest agriculture and livestock yields of any region in the world. While cereal production has increased marginally over the past two decades, more than 70 percent of this growth is due to...

Conscious of the need to embed agroecology within local and regional socio-ecological realities, the first Multistakeholder Consultation on Agroecology for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok in November 2015 assessed the contributions of agroecology in a context of climate change, the need to transform knowledge building and research, and made...

Video of an Integrated Diversified Organic Farming System (IDOFS). MariaS Farm is a learning center for diversified and organic farming systems.

Many farmers, especially in Indonesia, defend genetic resources by breeding and cultivating local seeds as a step toward farmers’ sovereignty on seeds. This is contrary to Indonesian government’s position. From the very beginning, the government have established many instruments that regulate plants breeding, including Law no. 12 Year 1992 on...

北京梁漱溟乡村建设中心从2001年开始组织支农活动，正式注册于2004年12月，是在北京市登记注册成立的民间公益组织。该中心以推进新乡村建设为核心目标，以推动农民合作和城乡和谐发展为主要内容。截至目前，本中心已经在全国各地建立新乡村建设试验基地近50个，与全国百余所高校的学生支农社团建立了友好合作关系。本中心组织大学生志愿者参与支农调研和新农村建设行动累计已达万余人次，大学生志愿者参与活动的农村分布在全国27个省区。在本中心接受培训和已经毕业的农村发展人才超过百人，参与过本中心培训的农民合作组织带头人达1000余人次。

Food-borne disease remains a major public health challenge in Africa and Asia. Most of the foods that carry the highest pathogen risk are produced by smallholder farmers, marketed through the informal sector, and sold in wet markets. Given the significant role of informal markets in African and Asian food systems,...

The GIAHS Initiative uses the sustainable livelihoods framework (SLA) as an approach to understanding factors (shocks, trends, etc) affecting people’s livelihoods (expressed as five types of capital) and the way these factors are linked to each other. Within the SLA framework, resources available to a specific community can be divided...

This Policy Brief has been issued in conjunction with and partly as a summary of "Towards effective national forest funds", Forestry Paper no. 174. It aims to give a quick overview of the mechanism of financing sustainable forest management projects through national forest funds (NFFs) and on how this financing...

Mr. Reymondo Caraan (RECOFTC) gave an overview on how to get more rights awarded to forest communities, where we are now in terms of implementing community forestry, what RECOFTC is doing, and stressed that governments should be made aware that people have rights.  RECOFTC has main office in Bangkok, and...

Efforts to enhance smallholder farmers’ involvement in agricultural markets under the World Food Programme (WFP) Purchase for Progress (P4P) programme have led to a variety of nutrition-sensitive activities. In many rural communities where P4P and partners work, these context- and country-specific efforts have begun to increase farming families’ access to nutritious...

The Philippines case examines the results of a shift in government policy from a system in which forest resource rights were granted to large-scale industry to one where rights were transferred to community organisations to carry out forest management. In this case, the co-management system is undercut because the standard regulations are...

This brief describes the changing context within which public forestry administrations operate and outlines concrete steps they can take to adapt to this changing context and to strengthen their capacity to fulfil their mandates.