Land degradation is a serious problem that crosses national borders, ecological zones and

socio-economic levels. It can be especially devastating for the world’s poorest people living

in dryland areas. The Land Degradation Assessment in Drylands (LADA) project, executed

by FAO with funding from UNEP, GEF and others, assesses the causes and impacts of

land degradation at global, national and local levels in order to detect hot spots and identify

remedial measures. LADA approaches land degradation as a biophysical, social, economic

The current volume presents the Proceedings of an important meeting entitled "Regional Expert Consultation on Land Degradation, Plant, Animal and Human Nutrition: Inter-relation and Impact". This scientific gathering managed to have a group of soil scientists/plant nutrition specialists, animal nutrition and medical doctors/human nutrition specialists to discuss these inter-related issues.

Lesotho is one of the poorest and most
unequal countries in the world. It is a small, mostly
mountainous, and largely rural country of about 2 million
people, completely surrounded by South Africa. The
persistence of poverty and rising inequality are striking
for an economy that grew at annual rates of 4 percent per
capita over the past decade. Redefining the role of the

Improving the long-term sustainability and resilience of smallholder agriculture in Africa is highly dependent on conserving or improving the quality of the natural resource. Conservation agriculture is conceived around more integrated and effective management strategies for provisioning both food and other ecosystem services. If unattended to, land degradation would reduce agricultural productivity and increase pressure on marginal environments in the Tigray highlands of Ethiopia, adversely affecting food security and livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

This report identifies the links among economic growth, poverty alleviation, and natural resource degradation in Brazil. It examines the effects of (1) a major devaluation of the Brazilian real (R$); (2) improvements of infrastructure in the Amazon to link it with the rest of Brazil and bordering countries; (3) modification of land tenure regimes in the Amazon agricultural frontier; (4) adoption of technological change in agriculture both inside and outside the Amazon; and (5) fiscal mechanisms to reduce deforestation." -- from Author's Abstract

The second of three books in IFPRI's climate change in Africa series, East African Agriculture and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Analysis examines the food security threats facing 10 of the countries that make up east and central Africa - Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda - and explores how climate change will increase the efforts needed to achieve sustainable food security throughout the region. East Africa's populations is expected to grow at least through mid-century. The region will also see income growth.

"An economywide, multimarket model is constructed for Ghana and the effects of agricultural soil erosion on crop yields are explicitly modeled at the subnational regional level for eight main staple crops. The model is used to evaluate the aggregate economic costs of soil erosion by taking into account economywide linkages between production and consumption, across sectors and agricultural subsectors. To fill a gap in the literature regarding economic cost analysis of soil erosion, this paper also analyzes the poverty implications of land degradation.

The 2014 Global Hunger Index (GHI) report—the ninth in an annual series—presents a multidimensional measure of national, regional, and global hunger. It shows that the world has made progress in reducing hunger since 1990, but still has far to go, with levels of hunger remaining “alarming” or “extremely alarming” in 16 countries. This year’s report focuses on a critical aspect of hunger that is often overlooked: hidden hunger. Also known as micronutrient deficiency, hidden hunger affects more than an estimated 2 billion people globally.