As the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity 2011–2020 comes to a close and countries prepare to adopt a post-2020 global biodiversity framework, this edition of The State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) examines the contributions of forests, and of the people who use and manage them, to the conservation and...

The holistic gardening project in Emuhaya, Western Kenya, is attracting local and international acclaim. Bio Gardening Innovations (BIOGI) is equipping smallholder farmers to break away from monocultures and create thriving, overflowing “food forests” on their farmland. Maize, the staple crop of Vihaga and Kakamega counties in Kenya, is harvested twice a...

The environmental effects of agriculture and food are hotly debated. But the most widely used method of analysis often tends to overlook vital factors, such as biodiversity, soil quality, pesticide impacts and societal shifts, and these oversights can lead to wrong conclusions on the merits of intensive and organic agriculture....

This document explores the gender dimensions of cultural practices in the Dehesa region of Spain. Specifically, the report examines the roles, responsibilities, constraints, and opportunities for women pastoralists and women involved in the wool industry.

The high incidence of poverty in the rural households calls for a concerted effort by all members of the household, including the women. Meanwhile, the discussion on the economic contribution of rural women in many developing countries has largely focused on national and regional levels with little or no concentration...

Control of Foreign Fishing (CFF) explores options available to coastal states. It seeks to find the optimal combination of fee level, surveillance expenditure, and magnitude of legal penalties to minimize the risk of illegal fishing and maximize the benefits accruing to the coastal state. It provides an economic model that...

The Open Food Network is a global network of people and organizations working together to develop open and shared resources, knowledge, and software to support a better food system. Open Food Network provides an open source software platform that makes it easy to create an innovative, and independent community food...

This report sets out the BOND Project’s activities and findings in two Central European countries – Poland and Czech Republic – focusing on small scale organic farming. Both countries share a common history as part of the Eastern bloc after WWII and then post-soviet reality from the end of the twentieth...

An FAO training has been a turning point in Rita’s shea business. Now she is an advocate and employer of other rural women, promoting sustainable livelihoods that can offset deforestation in her region. 

Did you know that this squash I am holding has more vitamin A than golden rice?” - Angelita Mangangan, an organic farmer from the Philippines, for #IGrowYourFood

Ana Claudia Rauber es una joven agricultora familiar que vive y trabaja en su propiedad y de su familia en Cantagalo, estado de Paraná - Brasil. De los estudios de posgrado en Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural Sostenible, la agricultora transformó toda la propiedad en producción agroecológica, y contó con el apoyo de...

Every year, FAO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific celebrates the importance of World Food Day. This year, given the COVID-19 global pandemic and the disruptions it has caused to livelihoods and food security, our celebrations are muted, yet within this context, today’s World Food Day itself has become...

The ecological and risk -management rationales for livestock mobility are well established. Yet, few studies evaluate the economic benefits and costs of maintaining or resuming mobile, extensive livestock production compared to sedentary or semi-extensive production. Here, we empirically evaluate pastoralists’ claims that transhumance, a specific type of long-distance herd mobility,...

This paper examined poverty among rural women in Nigeria with a view to identifying why poverty persists among this population. The paper adopted education, employment and earning as variables for discussions. Secondary data were sourced from the surveys of the World Bank, International Labour Organisation and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)...

A concerted effort is underway to better recognize, promote, and value the different ways women and men contribute to work related to the environment, forests, and climate change. The push is backed by national environmental policies that are helping to restore forest cover, as well as a specific and robust...

The commercialisation of traditional processed products from cassava, such as fufu, potentially offers new opportunities for income generation to rural households in Nigeria, Ghana and other parts of West Africa. Several options exist for the commercialisation of fufu, including the production of a shelf-stable product? This minimises the use of...

The preservation of fruit and vegetables by simple sun drying is practiced widely throughout arid and semi-arid areas, for example in Uganda. The use of low cost, solar drying technologies, can significantly improve product quality thereby providing practical opportunities for developing small-scale enterprise, particularly in rural areas, and creating employment...

This practice describes how Calliandra tree can be planted and grown in Uganda. First starting by seed collection and pre-treatment, then construction of seeds bed, seed sowing, and finally filling of polyethene pots with soil.

Ronnie Cumins, uno de los fundadores de Vía Orgánica y director de Regeneración Internacional, nos explica detalladamente esta gran iniciativa que significa un futuro brillante para el planeta.

Value chains are structured in ways that are unfavourable to smallholder farmers who often struggle to access finance, inputs and markets. An IIED webinar discussed how smallholders in East Africa can use technology to overcome those challenges and negotiate with buyers and input and finance providers from a position of...