Farmers in the northern avocado cultivation areas of South Africa were interviewed concerning their experience and perceptions of biological control. Factors affecting their decision to use biological control programmes as a disease control strategy, were also investigated. Results indicate that educational level, age and land owner status reflect the farmer's decision making ability and the level of commitment to adopt the new technology.

The Grain for Green Programme (GGP) was launched in China in 1999 to control erosion and increase vegetation cover. Budgeted at USD 40 billion, GGP has converted over 20 million hectares of cropland and barren land into primarily tree-based plantations. Although GGP includes energy forests, only a negligible part (0.6%) is planted as such, most of the land (78%) being converted for protection. Future use of these plantations is unclear and an energy substitution hypothesis is valid.

This paper re‐interrogates the positions on the agrarian question in India, to reach fresh conclusions about important agrarian policies of the Left, including that of land reforms. Internationally, the classical political economy approach to agrarian transitions has been challenged by positions arguing (a) that neoliberalism and the international corporate food regime have led to a new dominant contradiction between the peasantry and multinational agribusiness or (b) that the agrarian question for capital has been bypassed.

Urban land use has been a major driving force behind land use change in Estonia since regaining independence and land reform process in the 1990s. The study summarizes land use change, land management and planning practices in the urban fringe over a period of 20 years with the aim of introducing a sustainable land use policy in highly fragmented suburban land. The processes and dynamics of land use change are explored using cartographic and landscape metrics analysis.

This article explores the development of the social metabolism of Czech agriculture over the past 80 years and aims to describe the complex agricultural system from a biophysical perspective. As a Central European country, the Czech Republic's political system has experienced a number of turning points and changes in its history. Using the social metabolism concept and the material and energy flow method of analysis this article looks at the system from a biophysical perspective and explores the interactions between the economic system and nature.

Aim of the paper: in order to create the new most appropriate model of rural development in Lithuania, it is necessary to analyse specific situation, created under the influence of the last century historical events and its long-term consequences. Lithuania, as well as other Baltic states, has created the agrarian sector under the very complicated economical, social, and cultural circumstances. Each Baltic state (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) had some specific features of rural development, which were formed during the last century.

The dominant modes of vegetation variability over Zimbabwe are investigated using principal component analysis (PCA) on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (NOAA-AVHRR) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) monthly imagery from 1982 to 2006. Spectral analysis is also used to determine the periodicities of the component loadings. NDVI PCA-1 corresponds to the major vegetation types of Zimbabwe, and we demonstrated that grasslands and dry savannah have the strongest relationship with mean annual precipitation.

Research and policy debates over natural resource management in developing countries have largely focused on identifying the set of institutions that best supports resource sustainability and poverty alleviation. We argue that beyond finding the right institutional fit for a social-ecological system, it is equally important to understand how context affects the design and outcomes of institutional reforms. We propose a refined conceptualisation of context, based on a revision of the Institutional Analysis and Development framework.

This article highlights the continued significance of pre-capitalist formations in shaping the trajectory of economic transition in peripheral regions, even in an era of neo-liberal globalisation. There is a tendency for Marxist scholars to assume the inevitable “dominance” of capitalism over older modes of production. Using a case study from Nepal's far eastern Tarai, this paper seeks to understand the reproduction of feudal social relations in a region which is both accessible and integrated into regional and global markets.

Examines the role of development cooperation in land reforms and the extent to which donor organisations have addressed concerns related to gender equality. Reviews the reforms in 15 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia, with a focus on Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Nicaragua. Legislation upholding gender equality is now present in different degrees in most of the countries examined. However, implementation often does not follow suit and women still face discrimination, in part due to social and cultural barriers and the inaccessibility of institutions able to support them.

Tanzania’s land reform from 1999 has been evaluated as among the most gender-sensitive of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. However there is a gap between the legal framework and what is happening on the ground. This paper analyses the challenges related to the protection of women’s rights to land in rural areas. It provides detailed information on reform implementation experiences so far by analysing a number of government and NGO interventions.

Starting in the 1990s, the Vietnamese state sought to expand and modernise the country’s urban system after four decades of anti-urban policies. This paper examines the reworking of the socialist land regime that followed from this shift. It begins by explaining how new legislation and institutions combined market and socialist principles to lure domestic enterprises into realising the state’s new urban ambitions. It then shows how this hybrid reordering of policy triggered local experiments with periurban land redevelopment and new forms of alliances between the state and private capital.