By working with farmers to gain greater access to markets, development organizations are assisting them in potentially becoming more prosperous and successful. But the farmers also become more exposed and vulnerable to market forces and climate change that even the brightest minds in business and academia often struggle to understand.

Benchmarking can support farmers to improve their productivity and sustainability performance. At its simplest, benchmarking is defined as improving the performance, of a farm, for example, by comparing with peers, learning from others and identifying actions. Valuable lessons can be drawn from benchmarking by raising the subsequent questions: why are...

Historieta breve que busca introducir, principamente a los productores, en los temas comunes del campo y en prácticas sustentables. Por ejemplo: manejo agroecológico de plagas, manejo poscosecha, pastoreo, fertilidad y otros. En cada ejemplar se presenta un conflicto de la vida cotidiana de los productores, que es posible solucionar, mediante...

The PNBA was established in 1976 to preserve biodiversity, particularly migratory bird colonies. In 2000, the objectives broadened to include development of the local communities, which was deemed to be an integral part of the ecosystem, and the park’s management adopted a development and management plan (DMP). The aim of this...

This study investigated correlation and regression analyses designed to asses the respective relationships between the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale/ Prevalence (HFIAS/ HFIAP) as a measure of food access, the Household Dietary Diversity Score, the Months of Adequate Household Food Provisioning (MAHFP) as a measure of food stability and (i)...

Persistent poverty and under-development in South Africa’s former homeland communal areas have been little changed by post-apartheid ‘rural development’ policy. Rural development policy has often been characterised by impulses towards topdown planning, a default assumption that agriculture ought to drive rural development, a reliance on resource-intensive income generation projects, and...

A book celebrating EU agriculture: produce, culinary traditions and the role of farmers and agri-cooperatives

This toolkit is aimed at anyone involved in advocating for pro-organic policies, designing them, or deciding on them. It is therefore aimed both at government representatives and private sector users.

The Centre for Integrated Rural and Tribal Development (CIRTD), a long term partner of ActionAid India in Sundargarh district of Odisha, has implemented the project, “Enhancing income and securing the food and nutrition of Small and Marginal Farmers through Promotion of Sustainable Agriculture in Rainfed Region”. CIRTD works predominantly in...

The report confirms earlier systematic reviews that described a scarcity of studies investigating the potential beneficial health effects of an organic diet. The largest of the epidemiology studies looking at allergies and atopic disease, the PARSIFAL study, studied 14 000 children aged 5–13 years in five European countries. It showed that children on a...

FAO’s vision is of a ‘world free from hunger and malnutrition, where food and agriculture contribute to improving the living standards of all, especially the poorest, in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable manner’. To help its Member Countries realize that shared vision – individually at the national level and...

La investigación y su sistematización en este documento fue posible gracias al fnanciamiento proveniente de la Unión Europea a través de los proyectos “Fortalecimiento a organizaciones andinas para la incidencia en política pública sobre seguridad alimentaria en Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú” y “Democratización, derechos y diálogo intercultural para la inclusión...

The Expert Meeting on Climate Change Implications for Mediterranean and Black Sea Fisheries, was held at the GFCM, Rome, 4–6 December 2017, with the objective to provide technical support the development of an adaptation strategy to cope with the potential effects of climate change on fisheries, in the framework of...

The shouts can be heard from a distance as one approaches Domboshawa, 30 kilometres northeast of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. Tokupai madomasi! Tokupai mbambaira! Do you want tomatoes or sweet potatoes? Mune marii? How much do you have? Scores of women and children carrying bundles of vegetables, sacks of sweet...

El documento contendrá un resumen de cada una de las presentaciones que se realizaron en los talleres de Agroecología y Roya del Café llevados a cabo en 7 países de la subregión Mesoamérica y Rep. Dominicana. Entre los temas que se podrán encontrar en esta publicación están la relación de...

By 2050 humanity's ranks will likely have grown to nearly 10 billion people. In a scenario with moderate economic growth, this population increase will push up global demand for agricultural products by 50 percent over present levels projects The Future of Food and Agriculture, intensifying pressures on already-strained natural resources.At the same...

How the failure to properly recognise and regulate the EU’s fish producer organisations [POs] is failing the Common Fisheries Policy and smaller-scale fishermen and what should be done to resolve it.

Are the founding principles of open source – the ability to share, distribute, modify and reproduce information – transferable to agriculture? If in the computer field, free software is now a reality, this paper examines whether and how agricultural tools can be created and disseminated through ‘free’ processes. We look...

The vast majority of agricultural holdings in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are less than 2 hectares, made up of multiple parcels – 7 on average. This fragmentation of agricultural land is one of the greatest challenges for the country’s agricultural sector, having adverse effects on the productivity, competitiveness...

This edition includes perspectives on LEADER/CLLD, forestry, integrated approaches to rural policy and the new European Solidarity Corps, as well as short updates from the Slovenian and Slovakian networks. The edition’s thematic section brings ‘A focus on… social inclusion’, including an overview of social inclusion challenges in rural Europe, highlights of...