Soil erosion by water constitutes a threat to the maintenance of the subsistence living of the Ethiopian rural population. Past efforts at Soil and Water Conservation (SWC) did not bring about significant results, mainly because of the top-down approach pursued.

Present-day Central and Eastern European agriculture is characterized by a high incidence of small-scale farmers who are not producing for the market. This paper uses household level data from comparative farm surveys in Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania to analyze which farm household characteristics and endowments influence commercialization and subsistence farming.

This report reviews several decades of global experience in transferring management of government-run irrigation systems to farmer associations or other nongovernmental agencies in an attempt to apply the lessons of success to the African smallholder irrigation context.

Although the question of relative production efficiency of indigenous land rights is central to a discussion of land reform in sub-Saharan Africa, there is relatively little rigorous empirical research because of a lack of adequate disaggregated data with the exception of few studies, the subject has not benefited from rigorous empirical analysis.

In this chapter, results of recent research conducted in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray, which has experienced severe land degradation are synthesized. This paper highlights the technological and institutional factors determining the adoption of natural resource conservation at both the household and the community levels.