This paper provides an overview of what we know about farm size distributions, the emerging land markets, the role of tenure systems, tenure reforms and land policies in shaping the distribution of increasingly scarce land resources. The primary focus is on Africa while making some comparisons with Asia. Climate risk and change have serious implications for household vulnerability and food security. While there is a need to absorb further population growth in rural areas, a rapid rise in rural-urban migration is inevitable.

The triple challenge of rapid population growth, declining agricultural productivity, and natural resource degradation are not isolated from one another; they are intimately related. However, strategic planning and development programming tend to focus on individual sectors such as the environment, agriculture, and population; they do not explicitly take into account the compatibilities and inconsistencies among them. Farm households and their livelihood strategies are at the core of the intersectoral linkages approach advocated in this chapter.

CAADP Policy Brief 10by Kate Wellard-Dyer

This paper explores gender and issues of land access and administration in rural development. It argues that increasing social, economic and technological changes are requiring a re-examination of the institutional arrangements used to administer who has rights to what resources and under what conditions.

Analyses the effects of smallholder commercialization on foodcrop input use and productivity in rural Kenya.

Achieving sustainable food security (i.e., the basic right of people to produce and/or purchase the food they need, without harming the social and biophysical environment) is a major challenge in a world of rapid human population growth, large-scale changes in economic development and in the face of climate change.

In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), production on smallholder farms is critical to the food security of the rural poor and contributes the majority of food production at the national level.

Foreign acquisitions of farm land in developing countries have become the focus of concern. Many observers consider them a new form of colonialism that threatens food security of the poor. However, investments could be good news if the objectives of land purchasers are reconciled with the investment needs of developing countries. The paper finds that land for agriculture in developing countries has become a target of international investments because of the following:

For cities to be sustainable, they need to simultaneously address the vulnerability of people, places and sectors that may be affected by a changing climate; mitigate their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; and ensure adequate access to basic urban services such as water, food and energy to their growing populations. 

This background note, published by the Overseas Development Institute, provides an overview of the potential risks and vulnerabilities that face the water sector due to climate change. It also summarises of some of the adaptive strategies, targeting both supply and demand of water, being employed across various sectors in the developing world and offers suggestions going forward. It concludes by assessing how current knowledge of climate change can help inform future planning of water sector interventions.

Concentrates on the black smallholder farming sector. Policy objectives should include:Resource Conserving Technologies: re-orientation away from large scale farmers, consideration of goals other than high input/output (risk management, labour input, gender).

This scoping report provides context and analysis for addressing agriculture in international climate negotiations with the aim of informing climate negotiators and other stakeholders of different options and unpacking issues of interest. It observes that agriculture is characterised by a number of special features that distinguish it from other sectors, like producing food and meeting basic survival needs. Its context and site-specific nature makes uniform strategies and solutions ineffective and, unlike other sectors, it is directly affected by climate change.

Attempts to achieve "more for the poor" through the use of indicator targeting may in fact mean less for the poor. The efficient use of a fixed budget for poverty reduction may require targeting. However, the use of indicator targeting, using fixed characteristics that are correlated with poverty to determine the distribution of expenditures, will tend to reduce the budget. Ignoring the budget reducing effects can reduce the welfare of the poor as they receive a greater share of a shrinking budget.