Numerous studies indicate that agricultural production is sensitive to climate variability, and lack of infrastructure in developing countries increases vulnerability to extreme climate events. In Ethiopia, the historical climate record indicates frequent droughts and floods, which can devastate agricultural production and existing infrastructure.

Despite rapid income growth, South Asia has lagged behind the rest of Asia in reducing poverty and hunger. South Asia accounts for more than two-fifths of the world's poor, and although the region seems on track to meet the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty and hunger by 2015, it faces challenges in achieving that goal.

Human activities such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation have significantly increased the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) leading to global climate change. Global climate change and its associated weather extremes pose considerable challenges worldwide, and mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change is a high priority for the international community.

Global climate change poses great risks to poor people whose livelihoods depend directly on agriculture, forestry, and other natural resource uses. IFPRI's climate change research focuses on the assessment of, adaptation to, and mitigation of these risks.

Agriculture is vitally important to the world's hungry people, the majority of whom live in rural areas and depend on the land for their food and livelihoods. Yet the increasing fragility of the natural resource base, compounded by global shifts such as population growth, climate change, and energy scarcity, adds to the vulnerability of the world's 800 million food-insecure people.

Over the coming decades, global change will have an impact on food and water security in significant and highly uncertain ways, and there are strong indications that developing countries will bear the brunt of the adverse consequences, particularly from climate change. This is largely because poverty levels are high, and developing-country capacity to adapt to global change is weak.

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.

Numerous studies indicate that agricultural production is sensitive to climate variability, and lack of infrastructure in developing countries increases vulnerability to extreme climate events. In Ethiopia, the historical climate record indicates frequent droughts and floods, which can devastate agricultural production and existing infrastructure.

After 30 years of dynamic growth and substantial poverty reduction in Asia, do agriculture and rural development still have a role to play in that region? The policy briefs in this collection provide abundant evidence that they do.

Across vast areas of the world, human activity has degraded once fertile and productive land. Deforestation, overgrazing, continuous farming and poor irrigation practices have affected almost 2 billion hectares worldwide, threatening the health and livelihoods of over one billion people.

This report analyses the impact of climate change and land degradation on agriculture and related sectors in Viet Nam.

Following from the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture project, this book examines the relationships and linkages between land use and water management and social systems.