“In Cambodia, Thida is happy. Her organization, Farmer and Nature Net (FNN), encouraged her to start raising organic pigs to sell to the market. A partner NGO, the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), gave her the necessary training on how to raise pigs the organic and healthy way. Now, she no longer needs to go to town to buy expensive feeds because she can source and make these from the various plants and materials around her.

Not only is biodiversity a valuable asset, but it also represents a possible source of income for rural communities. The article shows how Peru is making use of this potential in the context of the BioTrade concept to sustain both, rural livelihood and conservation of native biodiversity. It further analyses the challenges farmers face and how targeted support for supply chains can help to overcome these challenges.

In the early 1980s, Germany’s KfW Development Bank financed the first irrigation project around Mount Kenya. A reliable supply of water was expected to enable farmers to achieve stable yields. In this way, they could not only safeguard their own food supply but also supply new markets and earn themselves an income. The following article takes stock of progress and benefits.

Liberia’s government seeks to put greater emphasis on integrated cash/food crop systems with broad-based farmer participation. However, shortcomings in regulations on land transactions could threaten livelihoods in what is already a vulnerable country.

Agriculture is the basis for the livelihoods of the rural Congolese population. Yet despite its considerable potential, the sector and its many smallscale producers are barely served by microfinance institutions. The lack of adapted financial products for development of the farming sector is one of the reasons for the country’s continuing dependence on food imports.

A development policy opting exclusively for value chain development and the integration of producers in modern markets overlooks the reality for the majority of smallholders, our author maintains. Policy should pay greater attention to addressing the area most small-scale producers are active in: the informal sector.

In October 2011, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) requested the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) to prepare "a comparative study of constraints to smallholder investment in agriculture in different contexts with policy options for addressing these constraints, taking into consideration the work done on this topic by IFAD, and by FAO in the context of COAG, and the work of other key partners.

Agricultural and rural development
provides a critically important opportunity for reducing
malnutrition. The purpose of this paper is to provide a set
of guiding principles for incorporating nutrition goals into
the design and implementation of agricultural and rural
development projects, and to provide examples of current
best evidence options for operational investments. Several
principles are likely to be important in all or most cases

This report brings together lessons from previous studies, supplemented by new analysis. It frames the challenges facing the rural and agri-food sector in the Western Balkans to illustrate the directions for policies, now and in the future. Part one looks at the characteristics of the rural and agri-food sector today, its potential and its obstacles. Part two looks at the future of the agri-food sector and rural space.

Welfare losses from the 2008 food price
crisis in Pakistan are deepening the gap between poor and
non poor populations and further increasing inequality
between the provinces. To estimate welfare losses, the
reduction in caloric availability at household level is
measured. The analysis of calorie intake by source supports
the notion that rural households were shielded from the
worst effects of the crisis by their capacity to grow their

This study compares the financial costs
and returns to tobacco growing with twelve (traditional and
non-traditional) alternative crops, looking at
profitability, costs, labor intensity, financial support,
technical infrastructure, land-suitability, marketing
difficulties, world demand, and production risks. It aims to
provide an improved understanding of the trade-offs farmers
face in deciding what crops to grow. The analysis is based

China has a very high prevalence rate of
cigarette smoking. According to a 1996 Chinese national
survey, 63% of adult males (age 15 and over) and 3.8% of
adult females were current smokers (Chinese Academy of
Preventive Medicine, 1997). These prevalence rates indicate
that there are over 320 million cigarette smokers in China,
which accounts for nearly one-third of the smokers in the
world (Collishaw, 1998). Moreover, it has been estimated