The Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty is expected to generate a purposeful collaboration between indigenous communities, scientists and policy researchers, leading to the emergence of a “new science of complexity based on modern and traditional knowledge for the design of resilient food and agricultural systems that would have...

Rotational farming is an agricultural practice that involves alternating cultivation between different plots within the same location whilst leaving the other plots fallow. It is often misunderstood, and is considered to be a destructive farming technique which depletes soil nutrient content as it often involves the clearing of land by burning....

A rapidly changing world combined with mounting domestic challenges is prompting many Middle East and North African (MENA) countries to rethink their development models and to initiate economic and social reforms. Taking this new momentum as a starting point, this paper uses the concept of Food Security to identify the...

This work aims to address the relationship between consumption, production and food policy based on Brazil’s School Feeding Program (SFP), seeking to understand how the consolidation of different systems of food production and consumption occurs. Thus, it aims to show how this program has been used in Brazil concerning the...

En América Latina y el Caribe existe una gran diversidad de experiencias que demuestran que el manejo forestal con criterios de sostenibilidad es alcanzable y representa una opción altamente competitiva en los variados contextos en que se desarrollan. Comunidades, empresas, productores, ONG o el mismo Gobierno, propietario mayoritario de los...

The Central Asia and the Caucasus (CAC) region consists of five countries in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) and three in the South Caucasus (Armenia Azerbaijan and Georgia). The eight countries of the region attained independence after the breakdown of the former Soviet Union in 1991, and...

Agriculture, particularly family farming, has had, and still has, an important role in many rural communities as a basis for economic activity, local social organization and as a lifestyle, although its economic role has declined over time. The development of agriculture has turned into an industry where profitability is linked...

Human activities have helped to speed up the process of desertification in Burkina Faso. In order to curb this scourge and its disastrous consequences, the NGO “TERRE VERTE” has, since 1989, carried out a rural development project referred to as bocage perimeter, (“Wegoubri” in the Mooré language). This new concept...

During the last decades, droughts have become more frequent in the Mediterranean, West Asia and North African countries, and have had negative socio-economic impacts which are frequently linked to a high exploitation of available water resources. The Fourth Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change states that extreme...

his is a story about how FAO assisted groups of farmers in five farming communities in the moist savannah zone of South Western Burkina Faso to enhance their crop-livestock systems through Conservation Agriculture (CA) practices, including crop diversification, using an innovative farmer discovery process, to bring about agricultural intensification and...

Actualmente en nuestro país se están tomando medidas que fomentan y exigen un desarrollo sustentable en el manejo de los suelos del país. A lo largo de la historia hubo períodos de expansión agrícola que fueron acompañados de severa degradación de los suelos, llegando inclusive a dejar grandes áreas inutilizadas...

Take a tour, accompanied by curious sheep and geese, of Mark Cooper's self-sufficient small farm. Over several years, he transformed a rundown house and hillsides of berry brambles into pasture and gardens where he produces and preserves most of his family's food. Visit the Goose Grotto in a constructed pond,...

Similar to other countries in the Sahel region, Senegal’s indigenous food production is hampered by lack of moisture and sandy soils low in organic matter. Soil erosion and degradation threaten large areas of farm land. In central Senegal’s groundnut basin, the low-lying area between the Ferlo and Gambia rivers, the...

This research estimates the impact of INDAP’s Credit Program on the per hectare agricultural income of small agricultural producers. To accomplish this, a Treatment Effects Model (TEM) is employed to simultaneously estimate producer incomes and program participation functions, correcting for the potential presence of selectivity bias through the correlation between...

This report was prepared as background information for the FAO/ISEAL expert meeting on Climate Standards for Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing held in Rome on 11 November 2009. The report aims to scope the possibility for a modular climate assurance system that can be applied in the agriculture, forestry and fishery...

Ce numéro d’Options méditerranéennes restitue des actes de la deuxième réunion thématique d’experts sur le pastoralisme méditerranéen qui s’est tenu à Tirana (Albanie du 12 au 14 novembre 2009. Trente participants de douze pays méditerranéens ont participé à cette réunion ainsi qu’un certain nombre d’organisations internationales : Fao, Pnud-Albanie, Icomos,...

Los avances en electrificación y la creciente presencia de biocombustibles han marcado el panorama energético en las áreas rurales en los últimos años. En 2010, ambos procesos podrían tropezar con sus límites —remarcándose la necesidad de buscar alternativas.

This study is commissioned by the Global Organic Market Access (GOMA) project, a collaboration among FAO, UNCTAD and IFOAM, to provide information that enables stakeholders and GOMA to develop an optimal strategy for facilitating organic trade (and thereby also organic sector development in Asia) through equivalence, harmonization and/or other forms...

Located in the center of Niger, Keita Department is a 4,860 sq km plateau with rocky slopes and valleys forming a complex system of watersheds subject to strong winds and water erosion. Plateau slopes covered by forests in 1962 were completely deforested by 1984. As in other Sahelian nations, droughts...

This guide draws on the lessons learned in the framework of the project “Increasing incomes and food security of small farmers in West and Central Africa through exports of organic and fair-trade tropical products”, implemented by FAO in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal and Sierra Leone from September 2005 to...