This study assesses whether the recent public and private efforts to improve farmers’ access to mechanical power in Ghana have had the intended effects on the country’s agricultural sector. Using panel survey data, this paper analyses the drivers of farm mechanization and its net impacts on cropland expansion and farming system intensification in northern Ghana. Several factors explain the use and use intensity of agricultural mechanization, including landholding size, total labor and fertilizer use per hectare, chemical use, and amount of land left fallow.

The aim of this article has been to identify and evaluate main factors which influence the agricultural land market in Poland. Statistical data from two institutions, namely the Agricultural Property Agency (APA) and the Central Statistical Office (CSO) as well as the author’s research have been used in the paper. The time horizon of the analysis covers the years 1992-2012. The lower limit was determined by the start of operation of the Agency of Agricultural Property of the State Treasury and the launching of a process of transformation in agriculture state.

Land as a resource of agricultural production is not fully exploited in Latvia, as approximately 400 thousand ha, according to the data in the identification system of agricultural parcels, were undeclared for the Single Area Payment Scheme in 2012 and, of the agricultural area, 10 % was uncultivated and 2% was overgrown. It creates unique opportunities and a potential for enhancing the management and use of land in the future to increase the output of agricultural products.

Research Hypothesis: an economically and methodologically justified implementation of land consolidation can improve the spatial structure of agricultural holdings and foster the use of land in Latvia’s rural areas. Research Aim to test the hypothesis: to assess the need for the implementation of land consolidation in Latvia’s rural areas in order to develop a land consolidation conception aimed at improving the spatial structure of agricultural holdings.

The reform of the 90s led to the elimination of states monopoly of landownership and to the privatization of most agricultural lands. Within the small auxiliary sector of agricultural land the turnover arose in the early reform. But in the large agro-industrial sector, the turnover of lands received the necessary legal regulation only in 2003 (more than 10 years later than the mass privatization of these lands). For this type of turnover, a significant part of the regulatory mechanisms was borrowed from foreign experience, because the domestic experience was absent.

Flood-based farming is among the potential options in ensuring access to water for crop and livestock production for small-scale farmers in the arid and semiarid lowlands of sub-Saharan Africa, and Ethiopia in particular. Flood-based irrigation while inexpensive is rooted in tradition in many rural communities which is in contrast to many other irrigation types which are unavailable (in terms of water source, technology or capacity) or are costly to develop.

The role of urban agriculture in global food security is a topic of increasing discussion. Existing research on urban and peri-urban agriculture consists largely of case studies that frequently use disparate definitions of urban and peri-urban agriculture depending on the local context and study objectives. This lack of consistency makes quantification of the extent of this practice at the global scale difficult.