The authors review the literature on land markets in South Asia to clarify what's known and to highlight unresolved issues. They report that: (1) We have a good understanding of why sharecropping persists and why it can be superior to other standard agricultural contracts. We have less understanding of what determines the relative efficiency of sharecropping in different environments and why other apparently superior contractual relationships are rare.

Malawi has pursued an agricultural-led development strategy since its Independence in 1964. This agricultural-led development strategy was based on the promotion of a dual agricultural system comprising estate (large-scale) production mainly for cash (export) crops and smallholder agricultural production mainly to support the food security needs of the population. After four decades of agricultural-led development strategies in post-Independence Malawi, economic growth has been erratic and a large proportion of the population lives below the poverty line.

Using the 2009 round of the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey, this paper examines the medium-term impact of the land registration on investment behavior by households, particularly the adoption of soil conservation techniques and tree planting. It investigates whether men’s and women’s knowledge of their property rights under the land registration (as measured by answers to a list of questions regarding the provisions of the registration, covering such areas as tenure security, land transfer rights, and rights related to gender equity and inheritance) has an impact on these investments.

The Philippines is an island nation, comprised of 7,107 islands that are split into 3 geographical divisions: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. In 2013, agriculture contributed 10.45 percent to GDP (PSA-NSCB, 2014) and 31 percent to employment (PSA-BLES, 2014). More im-portantly, its contribution to national and household food security is significant. Cereal production increased from 7.6 million tons in 1970 to 22.1 million tons in 2010. During the same period, fertilizer use increased from 201,000 nutrient tons to 771,000 nutrient tons (FAOSTAT).

T he Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) committed to the mitigation of the effects of climate change by signing the Kyoto Protocol for climate change and other related environmental management protocols. Since 1994, DRC has produced two national climate change communication documents (RDC, Ministère de l’Environnement, Conservation de la Nature, Eaux, et Forêts 2001; RDC, Ministère de l’Environnement, Conservation de la Nature et Tourisme 2009).

Book chapter

Nepal is a landlocked country with wide diversity of climatic conditions, ranging from temperate to tropical. Agriculture is the largest economic sector, contributing 35 percent to GDP and employing two thirds of the total population. Rice is the major staple crop, fol-lowed by maize, wheat, and pulses. These crops are spread across three ecological belts: Hills (42 percent of land area), Mountain (33 percent), and Terai (23 percent). Nepal, once self-sufficient in food, has become a net importer in recent years.

The purpose of the work presented in this report is to demonstrate that policymakers have tools at their disposal that provide significant help in the evaluation of trade-offs, opportunities, and repercussions of the policies under consideration. This report focuses on Colombia, however the analytical framework can be applied to any country interested in exploring country-wide effects and economic viability of policies that aim to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture. Results provided in this study should be seen as an example of the potential applications of the framework developed.

Indonesia is an archipelago consisting of 13,466 islands, which are divided into 33 provinces. Java, Bali, and Nusa Tenggara are the inner islands and contain 62 percent of the total population of 246 million, but only accounts for 8 percent of the total land area. The inner islands are naturally more fertile than the outer islands that have nutrient-poor, acidic soils. In theory, fertilizer use should be higher on the outer islands, but in reality outer island fertilizer use is generally lower, making crop yields lower, especially when compared to Java.