ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: This study investigates the impact of a specific legal change to land rights in Vietnam. Land rights are an important issue in Vietnam, where agriculture accounts for nearly a quarter of gross domestic product (GDP) and two-thirds of the workforce is engaged in agricultural activities. Agricultural land in Vietnam was decollectivized in 1988, and land-use rights were granted to households.We focus on the subsequent land law of 1993, which gave house- holds the right to inherit, transfer, exchange, lease, and mortgage their land-use rights.

The scope and urgency of the threats to
Nigeria's rural land are no secret. In 2005, a working
group dedicated to formulating a national agricultural land
policy began the process with a comprehensive articulation
of the challenges facing Nigeria's agricultural land.
The litany included recognition that: 1) agricultural land
use in the country has been unsustainable, resulting in no
fewer than eleven types of extensive land degradation and

This report summarizes the findings of
the Uganda Sustainable Land Management Public Expenditure
Review (SLM PER). The SLM PER was undertaken to achieve six
main objectives: (i) establish a robust data base on
SLM-related public expenditure that can support credible
empirical analysis; (ii) develop a sound methodology for
conducting SLM PERs, which could guide similar work in the
future; (iii) analyze the level and composition of SLM

Our unsustainable way of life is causing a crisis in our environment at a global scale. Climate change is threatening the future of our planet. The crisis is largely our own doing, and we also have the means to solve it, if we are willing to act on it. Farmers, fishers, and indigenous peoples, who live close to nature for their survival, are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. But they also have a special role to play in addressing climate change. What they need for survival - sustainable and ecological friendly practices - are also what are needed to heal our planet.

This research is intended to help contribute to this articulation process by identifying and consolidating small farmers' trade agenda in five countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. These countries represent a good mix of both net agricultural exporters and importers, providing the paper with a balanced perspective of looking at trade and its impact on small farmers. The agenda of small farmers in these countries formed the bases for the formulation of their trade agenda in ASEAN. The research is divided into three parts.

A Special Product (SP) is an agricultural product “out of the WTO” in that they are not subject to tariff reductions, i. e. Countries can keep the right to maintain protective tariffs on certain agricultural products that are essential for food security, rural development, and farmers’ livelihoods. The G33 proposal is for 10% of developing country products to be exempt from tariff reductions, with an additional 10% of product lines to have limited tariff reductions. This would be somewhere in the range of 300 products. The US counter-proposal is for a mere 5 products!

The World Trade Organization (WTO) hailed the recent Hong Kong Sixth Ministerial Meeting last December 2005 as a positive movement towards the conclusion of the Doha Development Round. The round was supposedly geared towards ensuring that trade contributes to the development objectives of least developed and developing countries.

Agrarian reform, or AR, is the redistribution of public and private agricultural lands, regardless of produce and tenurial arrangement, to landless farmers and regular farm workers, to include support services and other arrangements alternative to distribution of land such as production/profi t sharing, labor organization, or distribution of shares of stock.

What is the GATT-WTO?

The World Trade Organization (WTO) describes itself as “the only international organization dealing with the global rules of trade between nations. Its main function is to ensure that trade fl ows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.”

Rice is a very important commodity in our lives, as it is the staple food of about 3 billion, or three quarters, of the people in the world. Two hundred fi fty million farmers depend on rice cultivation. Ninety percent of the world’s rice is produced and consumed in Asia.

Contents: 

• The Seikatsu Club Consumers Cooperative: A Unique Producer-Consumer Relationship in Japan
• PDAP’s Push for Organic Rice: Enhancing the Survival of Filipino Rice Farmers in a Liberalized Economic
• Setting Green Net: A Trailblazer in Organic Marketing in Southeast Asia
• The Fair Trade System: Focus on the Oxfam-GB Model
• Emergency or Expediency?: A Study of Emergency Rice Reserve Schemes in Asia 

This book, “Shaping the Asian Peasant Agenda: Solidarity Building Towards Sustainable Rural Development in Asian Rural Communities”, portray the perspectives of AFA and AsiaDHRRA on the agrarian and agricultural situation in their own countries and of the sub-region. It contains country reports, workshop results and lectures of keynote speakers and resource persons, presented during the sub-regional conferences conducted by AFA from August till October of 2003.