This document presents the proceedings of the international conference held at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, April 24-26, 2002. The theme of the conference was Policies for Sustainable Land Management in the East African Highlands, which was convened to bring together researchers, policy makers, development practitioners, donors and others to review, discuss and synthesize the findings and policy implications of policy research related to sustainable land management in the East African highlands.

For more than 30 years, China has undergone economic reforms and development that have led to successful economic growth and poverty reduction. The country has also made considerable efforts to reduce the income gap between urban and rural populations, balance regional development, and conserve natural resources. In 2003, IFPRI developed a strategy specifically tailored to its work in China and expanded its national program.

Despite the rapid pace of urbanization taking place in Nigeria, half of Nigerians (approximately 70 million individuals) still live in rural areas; most of them engaged in smallholder semi-subsistence agriculture. Agriculture remains a crucial sector in the Nigerian economy, being a major source of raw materials, food and foreign exchange; employing over 70 percent of the Nigerian labor force, and serving as a potential vehicle for diversifying the Nigerian economy.

"This paper reports results of incorporating fish into IMPACT, a global model of food supply and demand that estimates market-clearing prices to 2020 for 32 commodities in 36 regions. It summarizes results for production, consumption, net exports and real price changes for 10 economic categories of fisheries items, disaggregated into 15 geographic regions of the world.

"Contract farming is conventionally thought of as a form of industrial organization that helps to overcome high monitoring, supervision, and environmental mitigation costs incurred from ensuring a reliable and uniform-quality supply (from the standpoint of integrators) and high capital and small-scale input and service purchase costs (from the standpoint of individual farmers). But contract farming is also a private sector vertical coordination response to the changing demand for certifying the use of quality inputs to produce quality outputs and of safe production procedures.

The recent food crisis, combined with the energy crisis and emerging climate change issues, threatens the livelihoods of millions of poor people as well as the economic, ecological, and political situation in many developing countries. On top of these crises, the decades of shrinking global investment in agricultural research are leading to slower growth in agricultural productivity. Progress in achieving development goals-such as cutting hunger and poverty in half by 2015-has been delayed significantly.

In recent years, the countries of Latin America have made radical changes in their development strategies, including decentralization of government, privatization, and deregulation of markets. These changes have already affected the livelihoods of millions of the region’s inhabitants and promise to reshape the region’s food and agricultural system well into the 21st century.

Economic shocks including food price shocks, environmental shocks, social shocks, political shocks, health shocks, and many other types of shocks hit poor people and communities around the world, compromising their efforts to improve their well-being. As shocks evolve and become more frequent or intense, they further threaten people’s food and nutrition security and their livelihoods.

The year 2011 highlighted ongoing challenges to global food security, from food price volatility, extreme weather shocks, and famine to unrest and conflicts. On the policy front, major devel­opments at the global and national levels both offered grounds for encouragement and pointed to areas where further action is needed.