Jambudwip is a 20-sq km island in the district of South 24-Parganas, in the Indian State of West Bengal, in the Sunderbans delta. Since at least 1955, Jambudwip has been used as a base for fishery operations and as a fish drying site, mostly by small-scale, artisanal fishworkers. Behundi jal...

Secondary forests in Africa Tropical secondary forests are those forests that have developed after clearance (usually by humans) of the original natural forest. Although not appearing as such in statistics, tropical secondary forests occur throughout the tropics, including Africa, and the area is extensive and increasing rapidly. Tropical secondary forests are usually...

Estudios empíricos de mano de obra familiar en el sector rural suponen, sin pruebas de respaldo, que la decisión de uso del recurso en la producción agropecuaria es separable de las decisiones de consumo y de la asignación del tiempo familiar al trabajo dentro y fuera de la explotación y...

Norway, on Europe’s northern fringe, is characterised by small-scale farming. The choice of crops and their yields are limited by the Nordic climate. Farm policies promote decentralisation and a varied farm structure in order to secure rural settlement, food security, food safety, environmental quality and sustainability. Agriculture receives substantial public...

This publication discusses the processes above, within and below the soil that enable water to move and crops to grow, and is intended to help land users make better use and take better care of these basic resources.The document will contribute to raising awareness of possibilities for better use of...

A Satellite Event on Biodiversity and the Ecosystem Approach in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries was held on the occasion of the Ninth Regular Session of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, in FAO, Rome, 12-13 October 2002. An informal presentation of the Satellite Event’s discussions and results...

Nowhere is the link between the environment and poverty more pronounced than in highly fragile ecosystems, where inhabitants are often compelled to degrade natural resources as they struggle to survive on inhospitable land. IFAD’s drive to break this vicious cycle has led to the development of a number of replicable...

Based on a review of its history, its present structure and its objective in the future, agroecology is defined as an integrative discipline that includes elements from agronomy, ecology, sociology and economics. Agroecology’s credentials as a separate scientific discipline were measured against the norms of science, defined by Robert King...

Securing food and a livelihood is inextricably linked to the exploitation of the natural resources base (land, water and forest) in Ethiopia, where over 85 percent of the population lives in rural areas and depend on smallholder agriculture. The pressure of intense human activity and improper farming and management practices...

This leaflet covers the main aspects of soil compaction in Conservation Agriculture. Conservation agriculture optimizes soil structure for reduced-cost, sustainable cropping systems that maximize the use of rainfall and irrrigation water for improved and more guaranteed productivity. The overall outcome is the more productive soil system that obtains the best from...

La pobreza rural constituye uno de los mayores problemas de América Latina y del Caribe. En América Central la incidencia de la pobreza alcanza a casi la mitad (49.9%) de la población. En 1999, 17,5 millones de centroamericanos tenían ingresos por debajo de la línea de pobreza y 9.3 millones...

El Centro Andino para la Formación de Líderes Sociales, CAFOLIS, inició formalmente sus actividades en el mes de septiembre del 2003, sin embargo, su nacimiento obedece a un proceso que arrancó en el año 2000 y se nutre de la larga experiencia de sus integrantes en procesos de educación popular...

Este documento es el resultado de una investigación encargada para evaluar las implicaciones del acuerdo sobre los aspectos de los derechos de propiedad intelectual relacionados con el comercio (ADPIC) y del Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica (CDB). También elucida las implicaciones de ambos acuerdos para el acceso a los recursos...

The Gambian government, with the assistance of donors, is involved in the promotion of the local milk and dairy products sub-sector. The farming system in this country is characterised by the predominance of mixed crop-livestock production. The cattle stock is mainly composed of N’Dama, a breed described as a low...

Fishing is arguably the world's most dangerous vocation, reporting the highest rate of occupational fatalities among industries, made only worse by declining fish prices, overfished waters and shortened fishing seasons. As fishermen are forced to move farther away from shore in search of scarce resources, the dangers they face are...

This is the proceedings of the Indian Ocean Conference "Forging Unity: Coastal Communities and the Indian Ocean's Future". The conference as an important opportunity to explore the idea of an ‘Indian Ocean community’ by bringing together representatives from all frontiers of the Indian Ocean (with the exception of the Middle...

In the last few years Croatian economy is restructuring through the processes of market liberalization and closing to EU, which is demanding some significant changes. Agriculture is in the process of reforms on the basis of CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) policies of the EU, and those changes are producing different...

This paper reviews marine biodiversity, coastal communities' traditional ecological knowledge systems (TEKS) and the biodiversity they have conserved, and the industrial exploitation of marine genetic resources; it then analyzes TRIPS and the CBD as applied to marine biodiversity, and the implications of TRIPS and CBD for both coastal States and...

Subsistence agriculture is closely linked to a low level of economic development. We find it both in today's less developed countries and in the early stages of industrialised countries. Typically, subsistence agriculture is characterized by a low-external input level and low productivity (per land and/or per labour). In these situations...

Survey results indicate that on the whole, individual farms in transition countries are far from pure subsistence operations. The majority of farms categorized as individual – household plots and independent peasant farms – sell at least some of their output. The proportion of output sold by these farms is quite...