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Key findings and policy implications discussed in this document—Promoting Farm Investment for Sustainable Intensification of African Agriculture— include the following: Farmers are much more likely to invest in both productivity and land protection when they can produce cash crops. Livestock husbandry is a boon to farm investments, as it provides cash income, manure, and an insurance policy against crop failures. Land tenure insecurity, political instability, policy caprice, and wildly fluctuating farm prices dissuade investment.

The workshop participants were clear that now is the time for choices, and that without the will to make those choices, the likelihood of success in boosting agricultural growth on a sustained basis would be small. Without such growth, it will not be possible to improve food security or halt natural resource degradation. It seems unlikely that all countries of Africa will choose to put in place the necessary conditions for growth, which makes it all the more important to decide at the outset which conditions are most likely to beget further success.

En el Ecuador durante siglos los cambios en el paisaje agrario se dieron de manera paulatina, casi imperceptibles, a penas visibles. A finales del siglo XIX y en las primeras décadas del siglo XX las técnicas de producción y los principios consuetudinarios que reglan el aprovechamiento de los recursos cambian de manera más acelerada. Los tiempos se acortan y las transformaciones en el paisaje se vuelven evidentes. Es más, se busca el cambio, se lo provoca. La sociedad se proyecta políticamente hacia adelante con miras a transformarse y sepultar la barbarie del pasado colonial.