Creating fertile ground for innovation in agricultural water management

Food-insecure households in many countries depend on international aid to alleviate acute shocks and chronic shortages. Some food security programmes (including Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program–PSNP – which provides a case study for this article) have integrated aid in exchange for labour on…

The goal of the project is to reduce food insecurity and improve livelihoods of poor people living in African drylands by restoring degraded land, and returning it to effective and sustainable tree, crop and livestock production, thereby increasing land profitability and landscape and livelihood…

Since the invention of agriculture 8,000–10,000 years ago, growing crops and raising livestock have been the primary causes of ecosystem loss and degradation. Today agriculture remains the dominant driver of tropical deforestation and associated impacts on biodiversity. Agricultural land makes up…

Climate-smart interventions in agriculture have varying costs and environmental and economic impacts. Their implementation requires appropriate investment decisions by policy makers that are relevant for current as well as future scenarios of agro-ecology, climate and economic development. Decision…

This paper conceptually integrates resilience and nexus approaches, developing a combined framework and indicating how it could effectively be operationalized in cases from mountain and mangrove social‐ecological systems. In doing so, it advances understanding of complex social‐ecological systems…

The report — Mechanized: Transforming Africa’s Agriculture Value Chains—summarizes the findings of a systematic analysis of what countries at the forefront of progress in mechanization have done right. It analyzes which policy decisions were taken and which interventions were implemented to…

A major challenge of our time is to produce sufficient nutrient‐rich food for the ever‐growing human population with limited land resources. There is a huge gap between current yields and genetic potential in many crops, which can be narrowed by enhancing land productivity. High‐input cropping…

If you’re looking to live eco-friendly, you must take into account the water footprint of your food. (Water footprint is the amount of water needed to make specific goods and services). Unfortunately, most people don’t know about the HUGE amounts of water needed to make their food. If you’re one of…

More than 3.2 billion people, or 2 in every 5 people, are impacted by land degradation today and up to 143 million people could move within their countries by 2050 to escape water scarcity and falling crop productivity due to the slow onset impacts of climate change.

The European Environment Agency’s five-yearly assessment ‘The European environment – state and outlook 2015’ (SOER 2015)

Climate change to shift global spread and quality of agricultural land. Changing temperatures and rainfall patterns contribute to soil erosion and desertification. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region predicted to lose the most land suited to growing crops

This study revealed that conversion of croplands to grasslands or integration of appropriate agroforestry trees in cropping fields in the region has large technical potential of SOC and TN sequestrations.

The Global Calculator is a free and interactive tool that helps you to understand the link between our lifestyles, the energy we use, and the consequences for our climate.

Grey literature is defined as ‘that which is produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers.’

Soil erosion is a significant problem in the Ethiopian highlands. The objective of this study was to investigate how farmers perceive the severity of soil erosion in the Upper Blue Nile Basin. The study is based on a detailed survey of 300 households and 1010 plots owned by these households in three…

Land resources are one of nature’s most precious gifts. They feed us and help our societies and economies to thrive.

Doing business with nature: opportunities from natural capital aims to lay out the challenges and opportunities of companies whose future growth depends on a healthy and sustained supply of nature’s goods and its services (natural capital).

The report explores the environmental footprints of everyday products, using a footprinting approach to measure the amount of land and water needed across the product’s supply chain

By 2025, 1.8 billion people will experience absolute water scarcity, and 2/3 of the world will be living under water-stressed conditions. In the meanwhile, we continuously waste precious natural resources like land and water.

Are we headed for a green revolution in food and water?

Chatham House has recently released https://resourcetrade.earth - a new website offering comprehensive and accessible data and insights into the dynamics of global resource trade, including agricultural, fishery and forestry products, fossil fuels, metals and other minerals, and pearls and gemstones…

The Toolkit for the application of Green Negotiated Territorial Development, a new working paper from FAO’s Land and Water Division, sets out methods and tools to bring everybody together, gather the needed information and attain agreement on how to move forward.

The Sustainable Food Trust today publishes summary proceedings of an international conference which brought together leading experts to establish the true cost of American food. America was one of the first countries to intensify food production and as a result was also one of the first to suffer…

In conjunction with the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 13) to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has launched a publication focused on land restoration and achievement of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN).…