Malawi’ s smallholder agriculture is facing a crisis, particularly in the more populated south. There is an insidious combination of land shortage, continuous cultivation of maize, declining soil fertility, low yields, deforestation, poverty and high population growth rate. Smallholder farmers are doing what they can to maintain household livelihoods under these difficult circumstances, however many of their actions, which are necessary for short term survival, such as the cultivation of hillsides, are not sustainable in the long term.

This document summarises the proceedings from a conference organised by International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) , Natural Resource insitute (NRI) and the Royal African Society in November 2004.The conference brought together a wide range of interest groups including, African policy makers, academics and civil society representatives, as well as representatives of the private sector and international agencies, to debate the way ahead for land rights and land reforms in Africa.

This brief explores the reform of land tenure institutions which re-emerged in the 1990s, and asks if these reforms are any more gender sensitive than those of the past?The paper highlights that a focus of the recent reforms has been on land titling, designed to promote security of tenure and stimulate land markets. The reforms have often been driven by domestic and external neoliberal coalitions, with funding from global and regional organisations which have argued that private property rights are essential for a dynamic agricultural sector.

This paper looks for the possible explanations for the land productivity differential between high caste and low caste farm households in Nepal. The paper indicates that caste position still plays a vital role in rural areas of Nepal.The paper finds that: land productivity is higher among low caste households. However, in case of owner-operated plots, the land productivity differential between low caste and high caste is found to be insignificant after controlling for land quality and household characteristics. This difference remains highly significant in case of rented in plots.

Land tenure security is crucial for women's empowerment and a prerequisite for building secure and resilient communities. Tenure is affected by many and often contradictory sets of rules, laws, customs, traditions, and perceptions. For most rural women, land tenure is complicated, with access and ownership often layered with barriers present in their daily realities: discriminatory social dynamics and strata, unresponsive legal systems, lack of economic opportunities, and lack of voice in decision making.

Market solutions based on the trade of carbon offset credits remain a dominant feature in international climate change negotiations. This paper undertakes a preliminary assessment of potential of climate change mitigation projects by evaluating Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects related to agriculture and land use change in Latin America. Results suggest that potential benefits of carbon markets in the agriculture and forestry sectors are often overstated, with failures in the areas of additionality, project accountability and sustainable development.

There is a common view and belief that women are the ones that do the farming in Africa while the men do not work much. This paper seeks to find explanations to why land productivity is lower on land rented out by female landlord households than on land rented out by male landlord households in the Ethiopian highlands. The authors find that female landlords have tenants who are older, own less oxen, are more related, and under longer-term contracts.

Traditionally, agricultural diversification is referred to a subsistence kind of farming wherein farmers were cultivating varieties of crops on a piece of land and undertaking several enterprises on their farm portfolio. Household food and income security were the basic objectives of agricultural diversification. In recent decades, agricultural diversification is increasingly being considered as a panacea for many ills in the agricultural development of the India.

A wave of commercial investments in the natural resource sectors has rekindled debates about the place of contracts in the interface between economic governance and control over natural resources.

You can carry out your own analyses on poverty and ecosystem services with the GIS data made available, some of them being publicly released for the first time. All data are accompanied by metadata.

• Population & poverty
• Agriculture
• Land cover & land form
• Base data

The Thai government has ambitious plan to further promote the use of biodiesel. However, there has been insufficient consideration on the environmental effects of oil palm expansion in Thailand. This paper focuses on the effects of oil palm expansion on land use. We analysed the direct land use change (dLUC) and indirect land use change (iLUC) caused by the oil palm expansion and its effects on ecosystem services supply. Our analysis shows that between 2000 and 2009 dLUC related to oil palm expansion was more prevalent than iLUC.

During Vietnam’s transition from a socialist to a market economy, household’s property rights over agricultural land were considerably strengthened through a land certification program. This resulted in active formal credit and land markets, either of which potentially affects consumption levels and volatility. This article evaluates the program impact with respect to consumption outcomes. In particular, it identifies the channel of impact through which improved property rights affect consumption volatility.