Launch of a new programme providing access to legal research and training in developing countries.

The Global Symposium on Soil Pollution (GSOP18) will take place at FAO headquarters in Rome on 2 - 4 May, 2018. The Symposium aims to provide scientific evidence to support actions and decisions to prevent and reduce soil pollution for increased food safety, security and nutrition, and ecosystem…

This book covers a much longer period (1995–2014) with better data and country coverage than previous reports. The focus of the book is on natural capital and human capital since information for produced capital and net foreign assets has been well established by other institutions. For the first…

Soil sealing for urban and infrastructure development constitutes the most intense form of land degradation and affects all ecosystem services. Researchers and policy makers have become aware of this fact and call for limiting development and compensating for new soil sealing with unsealing measures…

Over the past 16 years, Excellent Development has been working with partners across Kenya, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Sudan, Chad, Swaziland and India. Our main focus has been to enable the building of sand dams in these arid and semi-arid lands to provide access to clean water and all its…

The Regional Forum on Sustainable Development for the UNECE Region will be held on Thursday, 1 March, and Friday, 2 March 2018, at the International Conference Centre Geneva (CICG). About: The Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (RFSD) follows up on and reviews the implementation of the 2030…

Using the framework of the National Adaptation Plans (NAP)process, this brief provides an overview of the key issues to consider and main entry points for gender mainstreaming in the development of NAPs for the agriculture sectors.

This publication comes amidst the increase in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) [also known as drones] in agriculture – which was predicted to be the second largest user of drones in the world in the next 5 years. Chapters in this publication were contributed by various actors within…

Plastic pollution is a globally recognized problem, with an estimated 322 million metric tons produced in 2016, excluding plastic fiber production. When evaluating the risks three main sources of microplastics (MPs) should be considered; polymer nanoparticles manufactured for specific purposes like…

The population is estimated to reach nine billion by 2050, putting huge strains on food outputs. Combine this with climate change and desertification – leading to smaller amounts of arable land for crop production – and existing irrigation practices that over-extract groundwater and you begin to see…

This paper proposes a selective review of the classical economics-based literature on climate change and migration, focusing on the extent to which agriculture might be considered a key mediating channel linking climate change to migration. Overall, climate change is expected to have large and…

ISRIC, the international centre for world soil information, is a pioneer when it comes to Data Management. ISRIC has worked on compiling and harmonising data on soils for over 50 years. It makes the data available in a FAIR manner and supports open data where possible. ISRIC is therefore a real WUR…

This book uses case studies to examine a range of VCD experiences. Approaching the subject from various angles, it looks at new linkages to markets and the role of farmer organizations and contract farming in raising productivity and access to markets, the minimum assets requirement to participate…

The interrelations of human beings with ecosystems experience rising importance in sustainable land use planning and lead to the concept of socio-ecological system. Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) include both, a bio-geo-physical component and the related local to regional actors. Their system…

Two-thirds of the 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have already submitted or are preparing to submit to the United Nations their land degradation goals, to combat a problem that threatens agriculture and the lives of their people. In 2015, the parties to the United Nations Convention…

A changing climate leads to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration and timing of weather and climate extremes, and can result in unprecedented extremes. These climate extremes have significant impacts on human and ecological systems, which are influenced by changes in climate…

A sustainable planet may not be attainable, and a fairer world may require us to temper our dreams. Justice, equity, sanitation and even clean water may be within the reach of all, but only if many of the planet’s seven billion humans give up the dream of high life satisfaction as well. To achieve…

Moving up the value chain through processing Dr. David Bergvinson is the Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), which conducts agricultural research for rural development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Bergvinson has worked in…

The list of the world’s largest 500 companies by turnover contains a huge number of firms engaged in agriculture and food. And the trend continues towards a further concentration of power. Agrifood corporations are driving industrialization along the entire global value chain, from farm to plate…

How does the amount of land that youth expect to inherit affect their migration and employment decisions? We explore this question in the context of rural Ethiopia using a 2014 cross-sectional dataset indicating whether or not youth household members from a previous 2010 survey had migrated by 2014…

Inclusive businesses (IBs), embodying partnerships between commercial agribusinesses and smallholder farmers/low-income communities, are considered to contribute towards rural development and agricultural sector transformation. Structured as complex organizational set-ups consisting of, and…

Two Sudanese inventors use a drone to take on desertification and their rivals in a TV competition for entrepreneurs.