Chiefly an agricultural society, India has a strong linkage between land and social status of an individual. Nearly 70 % of its population dependent on land, either as farmers or farm laborers and it is imperative to address the issues of land ensuring livelihood, dignity and food security to millions of Indians. Land reform was a major policy initiative in the country in 1950s and early 1960s.

An introductory video to the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security.

The video tells about the implementation of the learning programme “Governing land for women and men”, which is part of the efforts to build capacities of change agents in five countries to implement the Voluntary Guidelines for responsible governance of tenure.

The dual relationship existing between land-based activities and climate change has long been established. Land-based activities are responsible for about 30% (IPCC) of global GHG emissions and are at the same time particularly impacted by climate change as they are strongly dependent on weather patterns. Although physical and technical considerations may help to investigate these two kinds of issues, economic considerations are crucial to understand how agricultural producers react to climate change and to climate policies.

Variable and low rainfall patterns combined with increasing population pressure have led to natural resources degradation in the Mopti region of Mali. This has forced both agricultural and pastoral communities to transform their production systems and social relations. To assess the adaptive capacities of these agro-pastoral communities to climate change, a participatory survey was conducted in the region between February and May 2009. The survey covered in total 175 households, covering 60 households per agro-ecological zone (i.e.

Through the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, G8 countries are seeking to mobilise the private sector and multi-national corporations to boost African agriculture. Looks at how African countries are engaging with the New Alliance. Argues that large-scale acquisitions of land for corporate agriculture, which may result from New Alliance projects, pose a serious challenge for local markets and smallholder farmers. Underlying assumptions need to be challenged.

While there is a large, though
inconclusive, literature on the impact of land titles in
Africa, little attention has been devoted to the study of
land conflict, despite evidence on increasing incidence of
such conflicts. The authors use data from Uganda to explore
who is affected by land conflicts, whether recent legal
changes have helped to reduce their incidence, and to assess
their impact on productivity. Results indicate that

A Report for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Analytics.

This is covers land administration and
reform in Sub-Saharan Africa, and is highly relevant to all
developing countries around the world. It provides simple
practical steps to turn the hugely controversial subject of
"land grabs" into a development opportunity by
improving land governance to reduce the risks of
dispossessing poor landholders while ensuring mutually
beneficial investors' deals. This book shows how Sub

Four years have passed since the
Millennium Development Goals sharpened the focus on
measuring the results of development-not the number of
projects undertaken or the dollars spent, but the
improvements in people's lives. The emphasis on
quantitative targets and the requirement for monitoring
progress on country poverty reduction strategies have
increased the demand for statistics. And that showed us how

Over the past decade, exports of fish
and fishery products from developing countries have
increased rapidly. However, one of the major challenges
facing developing countries in seeking to maintain and
expand their share of global markets is stricter food safety
requirements in industrialized countries. Kenyan exports of
Nile perch to the European Union provide a notable example
of efforts to comply with such requirements, overlaid with

Concerns about the sustainability of
conventional agriculture have prompted widespread
introduction of integrated pest management (IPM), an
ecologically-based approach to control of harmful insects
and weeds. IPM is intended to reduce ecological and health
damage from chemical pesticides by using natural parasites
and predators to control pest populations. Since chemical
pesticides are expensive for poor farmers, IPM offers the