Relating spatial patterns to ecological processes is one of the central goals of landscape ecology. The patch-corridor-matrix
model and landscape metrics have been the predominant approach to describe the spatial arrangement
of discrete elements (“patches”) for the last two decades. However, the widely used approach of using landscape
metrics for characterizing categorical map patterns is connected with a number of problems. We aim at stimulating
further developments in the field of the analysis of spatio-temporal landscape patterns by providing both a critical

We show empirically using panel data at the plot and farm level and based on a model incorporating supervision costs, risk, credit-market imperfections and scale-economies associated with mechanization that small-scale farming is inefficient in India. Larger farms are more profitable per acre, more mechanized, less constrained in input use after bad shocks, and employ less per-acre labor than small farms.

Includes the rise of land deals in sub-Saharan Africa; land grabbing and risks for small scale farmers; land grabs: another yoke over women’s land rights?; is land grabbing threatening pastoralism?; opportunity for groups at risk: the African Union’s continental standards on the land question.

Large-scale land acquisitions can have lasting repercussions for the future of agriculture, including both agribusiness and family farming. Rather than rushing into land deals, governments and investors should properly consider the wider range of options to invest in agriculture. In many parts of the world, family farmers have proved efficient and dynamic. Working with them can generate healthy returns, avoid the risks associated with land acquisitions, and improve farmers’ livelihoods.

Covers poverty reduction, the National Resettlement Programme models – group farming and small-scale commercial farming, economic sustainability of small-scale commercial faming, the way forward.

Includes ’small-holder’ farmers as potential beneficiaries of agrarian reform in South Africa, a class-analytic approach to small-scale farming, accumulation ’from above’ and ’from below’, policy implications.

Includes trends prospects and policies, biofuel production and land access in Tanzania – laws, policies and procedures, impacts of biofuel investments on land access. Findings and implications cover production models and their impacts on local land access; risks of land alienation – long term impacts; limitations of compensation; use of third-party mediators?; large-scale transfers of land for biofuels are most problematic; linking policy with practice; shortcomings of biofuel guidelines; alternative land holding structures and production models.

For many millions in the developing world, land is central to livelihoods, food security, even identity – the result of a direct dependence on agriculture and natural resources. It is not surprising that a recent wave of large-scale land acquisitions in Africa, Central and Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America has sparked a major debate. The briefing provides an analysis of this complex and shifting situation, focusing on Africa.

Includes rising land acquisition in developing countries; threats and opportunities from large-scale land acquisitions; making a virtue of necessity: toward win-win policies; 5 tables of media reports on overseas land investments to secure food supplies, 2006-09.

Prior studies exploring the quantitative relationship between landscape structure metrics and the ecological condition of receiving waters have used a variety of sampling units (e.g., a watershed, or a buffer around a sampling station) at a variety of spatial scales to generate landscape metrics resulting in little consensus on which scales best describe land-water relationships. Additionally, the majority of these studies have focused on freshwater systems and it is not clear whether results are transferable to estuarine and marine systems.

Despite programmes for rural land reform and redistribution around the world, inequitable land distribution and rural poverty remain profound in much of the rural South. Suggests a new approach to land reform and rural development. ‘Rural territorial development’ is based on and encourages shared territorial identity (distinctive productive, historical, cultural and environmental features) amongst different stakeholders and social groupings. Builds on the fact that rural people’s livelihood strategies are complex and often mostly non-agricultural in nature.