ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: This report provides a strategic assessment of the key issues, opportunities, constraints and choices facing Myanmar’s agricultural sector. Discussion focuses on pathways that will permit agriculture to contribute meaningfully to broad-based improvements in purchasing power and food security for the country’s many landless and vulnerable households. In doing so, it aims to assist public and private stakeholders who will be making the key investment and policy decisions governing future agricultural and food security trajectories in Myanmar.

This report presents the innovative experience in bamboo forestry management and the process of Communal Land Titling carried out by the community of Huay Hang and Napor, Sangthong District, Lao PDR. The systematization of this experience has been made possible with the cooperation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Planning and Investment of Lao’s People Democratic Republic, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the PROCASUR Corporation. They provided technical and methodological support in the process of documentation of the experience.

This report on Myanmar's political economy of timber trade highlights five different sources and flows of timber destined for export. The purpose is to bring to light the different actors, geographies, and politics embedded within the web of timber flows because each inter-connected stream has its own degree of legality, sustainability, land rights regimes, and ethical sourcing.

OPENING PARAGRAPH OF EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Whereas 2011 had seen a sharp increase in the number of Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) granted by the Royal Government of Cambodia to private companies, in 2012 conflicts became more acute and protests multiplied. The government showed that it had understood the seriousness of the situation by taking initiatives aimed at resolving land disputes, addressing some of the issues related to ELCs and granting thousands of land titles to rural families.

The issue of women’s access to land is often framed in the context of oppression, emancipation, or Vietnamese uniqueness. This study report examines contemporary women’s access to land across ten provinces outside of these traditional narratives. Ten selected research sites reflected a diveristy of rural-urban locations, lineage patterns, and ethnic diversity.

Under Vietnam’s State land ownership regime, the Government holds supreme authority over compulsory land acquisition. The results show that many improvements in land acquisition policies have been made, but poor implementation measures largely cannot prevent or even mitigate the adverse impacts on displaced persons. In particular, ineffective compensation measures and a lack of production land and livelihood alternatives accelerate the resistance of communities displaced as a result of hydropower development.

The article examines the key aspect of land relations – the possibility of appropriation and existing approaches to the re-distribution of land rent. Examination of rent relations begins with the analysis of approaches to the solution of this problem in classical economic theory. We have systematized existing approaches to the definition of the essence of rent. We have classified the types of rent with their detailed characteristics. We have established existing problems in the realization of rent relations at present time.

Using the database of eight Central and Eastern European transition economies compiled from the World Bank collection of World Development Indicators, the authors examine the relationship between high contract-intensive money as an indicator of contractual and property rights (or a general measure of the quality of governance and institutions) and performance of several macroeconomic indicators (GDP growth, FDI to GDP ratio, employment rate etc.) over the period from 1990 to 2011. The Pearson's correlation coefficients were used to determine the strength of the relationships.

The paper gives an overview of the directions and results of research carried out in geodesy and land management at the Latvia University of Agriculture from the year 1939, when the Surveying Department (later the Department of Geodesy) was established, up to the present day. Since the beginnings of the Department, researches in geodesy have been associated with problems of precise levelling: vertical movements of the earth crust, deformation of buildings and structures, as well as accuracy evaluation of geodetic instruments.

Unstable weather conditions specific for the Republic of Moldova destabilize the agricultural products market. These and other features of modern agriculture make our society to face acute need for informatization, especially it concerns the agricultural producers (farmers) but also public authorities of all levels. The implementation of Agricultural Cadastre Information System, initiated successfully in our country, is a fundamental solution in this regard.

As a result of the Land Reform, property forming and land market, farm areas were often built up from a number of land plots (up to 20), sometimes with unfavourable order. With the rural development and stabilization of farm production, the role and tasks of rational territory organization are expected to increase significantly in the area. It can be forecasted that, as a result of land rent and further purchase and sell, and other transactions, many new farmland properties are expected to appear that will not correspond to the requirements of rational territorial organization.

Sustainability of agricultural land use is determined by economic and environmental characteristics of land resources. The method for land use assessing, which enables to determine the type of its environmental and economic status (EES), was developed. The method includes the calculation of performance indicators, drafting the scale and the determination of the cumulative EES for land.