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…

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…

WOCAT has just published a new book called ‘Where people and their land are safer - A Compendium of Good Practices in Disaster Risk Reduction’. It focuses on land-based solutions in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and showcases and analyses 44 practices from 12 countries around the globe that were…

The newly released World Bank report, Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration, analyzes this recent phenomenon and projects forward to 2050. Focusing on three regions — Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America – the report warns that unless urgent climate and development…

Sub‐optimal land management practices are degrading soils and undermining food production. Sustainable Land Management (SLM) practices can improve soil and enhance yields. This study identifies variations in SLM uptake, characterizing farmers most likely to use SLM practices, identifying when it…

Alternative management practices such as no‐tillage compared to conventional tillage are expected to recover or increase soil quality and productivity, even though all of these aspects are rarely studied together. Long‐term field experiments (LTEs) enable analysis of alternative management practices…

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…

In recent years, interest has emerged in policy circles and among academics about the use of foreign aid to reduce international migration. Scholars have investigated this aid-migration nexus, but results have been mixed and questions remain. This paper contributes to the literature by comparing the…

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have released a report that analyzes the direct and indirect interlinkages between migration…

Higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere don’t just mean a warmer world: they could also mean both shrunken harvests and a less nourishing diet.

Better land management practices can sequester enough carbon to lower global temperatures

This book provides a comprehensive review of Grain for Green, China’s nationwide program which pays farmers to revert sloping or marginal farm land to trees or grass. The program aims to improve the ecological conditions of much of China, and the socioeconomic circumstances of hundreds of millions…

ECLAC and FAO’s new Atlas of Migration in Northern Central America shows that the majority of migrants from the countries of the Northern Triangle -Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador- come from rural areas. The report, which analyzes the main characteristics of migration in the subregion, was…

Most emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O) are linked to the use of nitrogen (N) fertiliser in agriculture, highlighting a need for agricultural management practices that reduce emissions while maintaining agronomic productivity. A new study has assessed the long-term impact of conventional tillage (CT —…

'Women as Environmental Stewards’ presents case studies from Armenia, Belize, China, Colombia, the Gambia, India, Mauritius, Morocco, Paraguay, Peru, Turkey, Uganda and Viet Nam that show how, when women are empowered and have equal opportunities to contribute to sustainable development, it leads to…

The 20th biennial Australian Rangeland Society (ARS2019) conference will be held in Canberra 2-5 September 2019 at the Kambri Convention Centre. The conference will bring together managers, researchers and policy makers to promote resilient rangeland environments and communities in times of change…

Much of the confusion about the definition of reference conditions for land health and degradation assessments is due to differences in policy and management objectives. Selection of a historic reference where it is not necessary, such as in the definition of future land degradation neutrality, can…

The Global Soil Partnership (GSP) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has published the first in a series of region-specific policy briefs to support harmonized soil management approaches and contribute towards achieving the SDGs. Titled, ‘The Multi-faced Role of Soil in the…

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the popular perception of rangelands and their management is that these vast areas have major problems without solutions: the common narrative focuses on overgrazing, herds of undernourished livestock, erosion and desertification, drought, famine, and conflict. However…

Climate change affects agriculture in a number of ways. Changes in temperature and precipitation as well as weather and climate extremes are already influencing crop yields and livestock productivity in Europe. Weather and climate conditions also affect the availability of water needed for…

Original Research Article published in the latest Journal of Arid Environments

Almost four years ago, CIFOR organized a side event on the tropical dry forests of Africa at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties in Durban, South Africa. At that event, we identified the major issues affecting dry forests in Africa and…

“Every second, one person is displaced by disaster,” the Oslo-based Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reports. “In 2015 only, more than 19.2 million people fled disasters in 113 countries. “Disasters displace three to ten times more people than conflict and war worldwide.”

The marginalization of arid rangelands is avoidable, but requires real changes in the current general political and economic rationale under which resources are allocated

This paper identifies new ways of moving from land degradation towards sustainable land management through the development of economic mechanisms.