Land degradation and soil erosion have emerged as serious challenges to smallholder farmers throughout southern Africa. To combat these challenges, conservation agriculture (CA) is widely promoted as a sustainable package of agricultural practices. Despite the many potential benefits of CA, however, adoption remains low. Yet relatively little is known about the decision-making process in choosing to adopt CA. This article attempts to fill this important knowledge gap by studying CA adoption in southern Malawi.

The Ghana Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING) Baseline Evaluation Survey (GARBES) survey was implemented from May to July 2014 as part of IFPRI’s Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of Africa RISING. Africa RISING aims to create opportunities for smallholder farmers in Africa south of the Sahara (through action research and development partnerships) by sustainably intensifying their farming systems and improving food, nutrition, and income security.

For decades, policymakers and development practitioners have debated benefits and threats of property rights formalization and private versus customary tenure systems. This paper provides insights into the challenges in understanding and empirically analyzing the relationship between tenure systems and agricultural investment, and formulates policy advice that can support land tenure interventions. We focus on Ghana, based on extensive qualitative fieldwork and a review of empirical research and policy documents.

Contract farming (CF) is attractive as a possible private-sector-led strategy for improving smallholder farmers’ welfare. Yet many CF schemes suffer from high turnover of participating farmers and struggle to survive. So far, the dynamics of CF participation have remained largely unexplored. We employ duration analysis to examine factors affecting entry into and exit from different maize CF schemes in northern Ghana, focusing specifically on the impact of development projects on CF entry and exit.

2015年对国际社会而言是具有分水岭意义的一年。联合国千年发 展目标于2015年到期；自1990年以来，世界各国在实现千年发 展目标方面取得了重大的进展，极端贫困人口、儿童死亡率以及饥 饿人口比例均降低了约一半。然而，我们仍然面临着巨大的挑战。 《2016全球粮食政策报告》综述了影响2015年及未来的食物安全和 营养的主要趋势、事件和变化，并探讨了全球食物系统如何在为进 一步减少饥饿、营养不良和贫困做出最优贡献的同时，确保全球资 源的可持续利用。2016年是我们将新的国际和国家承诺转化为行动 的重要的一年。

L’année 2015 a marqué un tournant décisif pour la communauté internationale du développement. L’aboutissement des Objectifs du Millénaire pour le développement a souligné les avancées remarquables enregistrées depuis 1990 : l’extrême pauvreté, la mortalité infantile et la faim ont toutes chuté à peu près de moitié. Toutefois, un défi considérable demeure.