This 2014–2015 Global Food Policy Report is the fourth in an annual series that provides a comprehensive overview of major food policy developments and events. In this report, distinguished researchers, policymakers, and practitioners review what happened in food policy in 2014 at the global, regional, and national levels, and—supported by the latest knowledge and research—explain why. This year’s report is the first to also look forward a year, offering analysis of the potential opportunities and challenges that we will face in achieving food and nutrition security in 2015.

In addition to global developments and food policy changes, 2014 also saw important developments with potentially wide repercussions in individual countries and regions. This chapter offers perspectives on major food policy developments in various regions including Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

This edition of the Land Tenure Journal features a selection of articles from Central and Eastern Europe to Francophone and Anglophone West Africa, through East Africa and back to Northern Europe. The focus of the topics spans land consolidation approaches in Europe, experiences of land colonization and an overview of tenure reforms in Burkina Faso, post-conflict land policy in Liberia, land reform in Malawi, and community commons in Norway.

The Review of the legislative framework and jurisprudence concerning the right to adequate food in Nepal discusses overarching aspects of Nepalese law and jurisprudence dealing with the human right to food. Following a brief discussion of the international legal protection of the right to food in Nepal, the review, in particular provides a critical assessment of constitutional as well as legislative provisions and offers a thorough analysis of Supreme Court jurisprudence pertaining to the right to food.

The past decade has ushered in an era of increasingly contentious land politics in Zambia, with investors, the government, and chiefs simultaneously blamed for injustices in land allocation. These conflicts over land have been exacerbated, and at times caused by the lack of transparency and available data on the status of land. While a variety of actors has real grievances with the security and efficiency of the current system of land allocation, smallholder farmers bear the brunt of the risk of continuing the status quo in land policy.

Customary land is the foundation of smallholder agriculture in Zambia. In recent decades much of this land has under gone significant change as the result of population pressures, land alienation, infrastructure investments, and climate change. Despite these changes, knowledge about both the quantity of customary land and the quality of this land for agricultural commercialization purposes is scant.

The Zambia Wildlife Act, 2015

In the context of the global land rush, some portray large-scale land acquisitions as a potent threat to the livelihoods of already marginalized rural farming households in Africa. In order to avoid the potential pitfall of studying a particular project that may well have atypical effects, this paper systematically investigates the impact on commercial farm wage incomes for rural smallholder households of all pledged investments in the agricultural sector in Zambia between 1994 and 2007.

This report was commissioned by UN-Habitat to review the laws and land tenure of a selected number of southern African countries. It involved the appointment of country specialists who researched and produced country chapters for their respective countries namely, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia. A regional expert was appointed to produce a regional overview to serve as a source document for the country reports, as well as provide overall coordination of the project. The project was carried out over a period of roughly one year, which began in March 2004.

No mundo e em África, o agronegócio internacional assume novas dimensões nos últimos anos. A procura de extensas áreas no estrangeiro para a produção em grandes plantações de commodities, associada à crescente internacionalização do capital agrário e financeiro em programas bi ou multilaterais é uma das manifestações desse fenómeno.

Se trata de un aporte técnico para entender el contexto político, reivindicativo, pero principalmente legislativo del acceso a la tierra de sectores populares en el medio rural del Uruguay actual. El estudio parte de la intervención del Estado sobre el acceso a la tierra a través de las leyes e instrumentos complementarios a las mismas y la trama de sus aplicaciones concretas. Por lo tanto es un documento…

El presente documento intenta dar cuenta de lo que sucede en la aplicación de políticas públicas referidas a la cuestión agraria. Para emprender la exposición, nos planteamos las preguntas ¿Cómo está distribuida la tierra en la actualidad? ¿En qué se utiliza la tierra productiva? ¿Cuál es la propuesta del presente gobierno para el campo en general?