The agriculture sector faces the challenge of providing adequate food to a growing world population. There is limited scope to expand arable land, and unpredictable weather, floods, and other disastrous events make food production even more challenging. This guidebook provides information on 22 technologies and options for adapting to climate change in the agriculture sector.

The economic advantages of improved agro forestry fallow systems over traditional continuous cropping systems are important tools that can be used to influence the choice of land use options at household levels. In Kigezi highlands Uganda, the upper parts of farmers’ crop field terraces are degraded due to continuous cropping. Improved fallows are being promoted in order to increase soil productivity while increasing fuelwood production.

This study compares the contributions of climate change and socioeconomic development to potential future changes of agricultural land use in West Africa.

It uses a prototype land use projection (LandPro) algorithm which is based on a balance between food supply and demand, and accounts for the impact of socioeconomic drivers on the demand side and the impact of climate-induced crop yield changes on the supply side. It considers the impact of human decision-making on land use.

Agriculture plays an important role in climate change, both as a contributor emitting greenhouse gasses (GHGs) and as a potential reducer of negative impacts. This paper gives an overview of how current and proposed agricultural practices affect climate change and how the proposed measures for mitigation and adaptation impact agriculture. The paper states that industrial agriculture, as currently practiced with monocultures and agrochemicals in a globalised production system, is a major contributor to climate change.

This paper assesses the prospects of mitigating climate change through emission reductions from forestry and agriculture in the Brazilian Amazon. It uses official statistics, literature and case study material to identify the scope for emission reductions, in terms of potential additionality, opportunity costs, technological complexity, transaction costs, and risks of economic and environmental spill-over effects.

This report discusses the need and options to balance consumption with sustainable production, as changing trends in both the production and consumption of land-based products put increased pressure on land resources across the globe. It focuses on land-based products (food, fuels and fibre) and describes methods which enable countries to determine whether their consumption levels exceed sustainable supply capacities. Strategies and measures are outlined with the aim of allowing the adjustment of policy framework to balance consumption with these capacities.

This annotated bibliography provides evidence that community tenure over forests can result in more forest cover and more species-rich forests, less deforestation and degradation, and fewer fires than some other approaches to protecting forests. The authors initiated the review by identifying relevant scholarly articles published since 2002 based on interviews with experts and keyword searches of databases.

World over the nutmeg continues to be a prized spice because of its unique flavour and pharmaceutical properties.

This report aims to assess what poverty means to marginalized rural families, what kind of survival strategies families use in times of hardship, and what these families believe is needed to alleviate their poverty.

Agriculture is the largest global user of biodiversity. Over-reliance on a handful of crops puts global food security at great risk especially in the context of climate change. Selected and used by generations of farmers, agricultural biodiversity contributes to reducing malnutrition, alleviating poverty and combating climate change challenges. This diversity has been in decline for decades and is now in danger of disappearing and efforts needed to conserve them using both ex situ and in situ approaches.

The policy debate about the merits and demerits of biofuels is growing and changing rapidly, with concerns being voiced over their effectiveness for mitigating climate change, role in recent food price hikes and social environmental impacts. This study contributes to these debates through examining the current and likely future impacts of the increasing spread of biofuels on access to land in producer countries, particularly for poorer rural people. It draws on a literature review of evidence drawn from diverse contexts across Africa, Asia and Latin America.