This report presents the problem,
describes the analytical framework, the African and World
context and the characteristics that need to be present for
a responsible and effective urbanization. Chapter one
discusses the issues involved in measuring urban growth and
density and the problem of under-measuring density. Chapter
two introduces key aspects of the recent urbanization in
Tanzania, including migration, structure of economy and

The study includes four sections: i)
brief production background; ii) description of the
Argentine soybean value chain; iii) evolution of the main
policies and institutional regimes in Argentina; iv) lessons
learned related to the political economy and the industrial
organization. The study describes the main policies
implemented in Argentina during the last two decades which
had impact on the structure of the soybean value chain and

This Policy Memorandum provides policy
advice to the government of Liberia (GOL) in an effort to
mainstream gender issues in policies, programs, and projects
supporting agricultural production and value-chain
development. It is organized as follows. Section I reviews
women's roles in Liberian agriculture and agricultural
value chains, drawing on a variety of data sources,
including the 2007 Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire

This paper discusses the social impacts
of Costa Rica's Payments for Environmental Services
(PSA) program and their effect on rural poverty. Although
the analysis is hampered by significant information gaps, we
believe that the PSA Program has probably managed to have an
impact on the poor. This impact is almost certainly positive
on the poor who were able to participate, but is difficult
to quantify. However, except for very few cases, it seems

It has often been assumed that payments
for watershed services (PWS) would go mostly to poor land
users, thus contributing to poverty reduction, but there has
been little empirical verification to date. This paper uses
data from highland Guatemala to assess the potential for PWS
to reduce poverty by examining whether the recipients of
payments for environmental services are likely to be poor.
The watersheds in which PWS would be feasible due to the

José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), on the role of family farms for global food security, the need for sound rural development stategies and the responsibility of governments, the private sector and civil society.

Family farming has many different meanings to many different people. While such farms come in all shape and sizes, one thing all practitioners agree on is that family farming is more than a business – it’s a way of life. The following article shows what constitutes this way of life, the challenges that family farms in Europe and throughout the world face and why and how the European Union supports this type of enterprise.

Family farms are especially well suited to meet the challenges of labour organisation in agriculture. In early stages of development, they play a particularly important role in creating productive employment for the major share of the population. Moreover, they have strong incentives to use their resources sustainably so as to pass them on to future generations. Yet, family farms should not be romanticised. Often, they only survive by working longer hours and accepting lower incomes than people employed in other sectors of the economy.

For a long time, the agricultural policies of the Mercosur states ignored family farming, focusing on promoting individual crops and export production instead. Rural development was not on the agenda. Only after the turn of the millennium did a process of rethinking set in.

Despite the crucial role of women in family farms and small-scale agriculture, gender inequality is still present in many ways – jeopardising the food and nutrition security of millions of people.

A focus edition on family farming would hardly be credible without giving the family farmers themselves an opportunity to speak. We talked to Moses Munyi, the owner of a six-hectare farm in Embu, Kenya, about his everyday life and about his views of the prospects for farming in the future.

One of the basic conditions of empowering farmers is to get them organised. Machinery rings are a promising organisational concept to link up the farms and raise their profitability and power by promoting mechanisation in rural areas.