Collective action, on communal grazing land, has evolved in the highlands of northwestern Ethiopia to mitigate the problems of feed shortage and land degradation due to overgrazing. The exercise is liked by farmers for improving the availability of natural pasture during the long dry season when other feed sources get depleted. However, large portions of the communal grazing lands are still managed under free grazing throughout the year.

This study examines the causes and consequences of gully erosion, as perceived by the local people of Dangara area, Nigeria. The study particularly seeks to explore the local people’s perceptions of gully erosion and how it affects crop, settlement development, crop yields, land ownership and values, rural economics and private conservation investments in Dangara area of Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory. It is based on analysis of data collected using questionnaires administered to 346 respondents in the area.

Changes affecting livestock farming systems have made farm work a central concern for both the sector and for farmers themselves. Increased pressure on farms to be competitive and productive together with farmers’ demand for greater autonomy, holidays or time to spend on private activities and the family converge to underline the two key dimensions of work – productivity and flexibility – required for the assessment of work organization.

Smallholders in many tropical highlands cause serious environmental damage. The Cameron Highlands of Malaysia offer an excellent opportunity for studying how farmers interact with environment, changing markets, infrastructure development, indigenous peoples, and tourism, and how these shape innovation. Our surveys in 2002-2004, 2006 and 2007 show that farmers have intensified production and in doing so some have adopted less damaging practices. We assess trends and causation of changes; this offers opportunities for more proactive management.

There has been an increased interest in the use of vegetative barriers in acid-infertile upland management systems in Southeast Asia. This paper analyses the experimental designs and policies in early-1990s of using vetiver grass barriers (Vetiveria zizanioides L.) in microwatersheds with short-rotation tree plantations in Vinh Phu Province, Vietnam. Four different mixed tree-vetiver models on degraded Ferric-Plinthic Acrisols are discussed.

Extensive livestock farming systems in the Less Favored Areas (LFA) of the European Union (EU) are under social stress and requirement to adapt their production practices to new economic and social realities. This research argues that a restructuring plan for the cereal-sheep system of Castile-La Mancha may represent economic and ecological synergies. The potential implementation of a technical strategy (integrating cereal and sheep farming and increasing acreage of annual forage legumes) has been tested within a community-based research project carried out over three phases.

The Nigerian savanna soils are low in fertility, organic matter and cation exchange capacity. The traditional method of improving the fertility and productivity of soils of the savanna is through natural fallowing which typically takes three to five years. The method is no longer suitable for most farmers because of the rapid growth of population in developing countries and the resulting intensive cultivation of agricultural land. In this study, a short fallow technique was adopted using forage legumes. Selected soil chemical properties were also evaluated.

In response to climate change, research is being undertaken to understand the on-farm greenhouse gas emissions and water use for agricultural systems and investigate options farmers may have for mitigating or offsetting emissions. In the present study, a life cycle assessment framework is used to determine on-farm GHG emissions and water use, and the overall 'cradle-to-farm gate' GHG emissions and water use attributed to beef production.

By the year 2050, agriculture will have to provide the food and nutrition requirements of some 9 billion people. Moreover, to maintain that level of productivity indefinitely it must do so using environmentally sustainable production systems. This task will be profoundly complicated by the effects of climate change, increasing competition for water resources and loss of productive lands.

This paper analyses the land use/cover dynamics of land degradation through the interpretation of aerial photographs (1958 and 1980) and 2006 SPOT-5 satellite image of the Gerado catchment. Other, non-visual data were gathered from personal interview and focus group discussions conducted in 2010 and 2011 with local elders, farmers and development (agricultural extension) agents. The results identified the presence of cultivated and rural settlement land, shrubland, woodland, bare land, grassland, urban built up area and forest.

Innovation by farmers in land husbandry was the focus of the project Promoting Farmer Innovation (PFI), which was operational in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda from 1997 to 2001. One of the project's final activities was to document best-bet innovations. It was decided to make use of a questionnaire available under the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) to collect data on a selection of these technologies. Data were fed back into WOCAT's global database.