Initially hailed a huge success, Malawi’s effort to boost agriculture with fertiliser subsidies appears to have met with failure. The author has a look at what went wrong, arguing that developments must be assessed against the backdrop of politics.
The agricultural economics literature provides various estimates of the number of farms and small farms in the world. This paper is an effort to provide a more complete and up to date as well as carefully documented estimate of the total number of farms in the world, as well as by region and level of income. It uses data from numerous rounds of the World Census of Agriculture, the only dataset available which allows the user to gain a complete picture of the total number of farms globally and at the country level.
One of the guiding mandates within the FAO Constitution is the following: “The Organization shall promote and, where appropriate, shall recommend national and international action with respect to: … the conservation of natural resources and the adoption of improved methods of agricultural production ...”. In many African countries, in addition to low yields, food production is limited by the availability of land and water resources.
This paper discusses – at the sub-basin level – the regional differences and comparative advantages for agricultural development and water resources utilization in the Nile Basin. It looks at options for development, projected in the regional context, and the importance of agricultural water use for social and food security in the different parts of the basin.
As cities expand to cover farmland with roads and buildings, the conflict between traditional land rights, and modern systems of ownership and distribution become very clear. This report comes from Blantyre in Malawi, where city authorities now charge rent on land that was once freely owned.
Where do forests and forestry stand today in international climate change negotiations? What exactly does it mean to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+)? What are the opportunities and risks for forests in today’s changing climate and is there a clear path forward? The articles in this issue address these and other questions.
Several traditional methods of maintaining soil fertility in bean-based cropping systems are reviewed as follows: visoso, large- scale chitemene, ngoro or matengo pit (Mbinga District, Tanzania), mambwe land-use system of northern Zambia (fundikila), mounds of the Wafipas (SW Tanzania), tumba land-use system (southern Tanzania), guie (central highlands of Ethiopia), mafuku in Zaire, termite mounds, agroforestry, relay intercropping systems, coffee- banana-bean cropping system of the Wahayas of Bukoba (Tanzania), removal of maize tassels (northern Malawi), and storage of nutrients in weeds (
A través de nuestro sólido motor de búsqueda, puede explorar cualquier elemento de los más de 64.800 recursos rigurosamente seleccionados en la Biblioteca de la Tierra. Si desea obtener una visión general de lo que es posible, siéntase libre de examinar la Guía de búsqueda.
