This study is based on research carried out during several periods from mid 1991 to mid 1995 in the ejido La Canoa in Jalisco, western Mexico, and in several government agencies. The study focuses in particular on the period between the 1930s and 1992 when the Mexican agrarian law was fundamentally changed. The last chapters of the book discuss the change of the agrarian law in 1992.

A pilot project on the use of Farmer Participatory Research (FPR) methodologies with the objective of enhancing farmer adoption of practices that minimize soil erosion in cassava-based cropping systems, was conducted jointly by DOA and DOAE with technical and financial support from CIAT in two sites in Nakhon Ratchasima and Sra Kaew provinces. The activities involved a preliminary survey using RRA methodologies, the setting out of demonstration plots, as well as farmers meetings and farmers field trips to observe the demonstration plots.

Soil degradation, both due to soil erosion and nutrient removal, is a major problem in cassava fields. Most of the existing management technologies that have been developed have had little success in adoption. Some of the reasons are that the technology developed is technically oriented, based on experiment station research with very little farmer involvement.

Farmer Participatory Research (FPR) in Vietnam has been carried out since 1994 in collaboration with CIAT, with the objective of improving the adoption of soil conservation practices in cassava fields. Two villages in Pho Yen district, Bac Thai province; one in Thanh Hoa district, Vinh Phu province; and one in Luong Son district of Hoa Binh province were selected as pilot sites for implementing the FPR methodology.

Burmese version

Aujourd'hui on s'accorde pour reconnaître que les femmes jouent un rôle important dans l'économie des pays et plus particulièrement dans l'agriculture pour les pays fortement agricoles et sous développés comme le Burkina Faso. Cette conviction est traduite au niveau national par l’élaboration des stratégies nationales pour l'intégration des femmes au développement et plus récemment encore par la creation d'un ministère de la promotion de la femme.

Over the years agricultural scientists and extension agents have asked themselves why farmers do not take steps to control soil erosion, especially where such measures would appear to be cost-effective. Several explanations have been put forward, but thus far insufficient attention has been given to differences between scientists and farmers in their perception of the causes and effects of soil erosion. This is illustrated by a case study carried out in Zululand in South Africa.The case study revealed various differences between farmers and scientists in their perception of erosion.

In a selected study are in Pucallpa, Peru, 151 farmer-settlers were interviewed to understand current land use dynamics. Respondents were stratified according to broad differences determined by preliminary informal surveys. Settlers included: farmers practicing slash-and-burn agriculture in upper forested areas, slash-and-burn farmers living along rivers, small-scale cattle ranchers with lands located largely along the road connecting Pucallpa to Lima, and a subset of forest slash-and-burn farmers who had established oil palm as a cash crop.

An evaluation of headwater erosion and sediment dynamics was carried out to assess the health of the Middle Mountain agricultural system in Nepal. Controversial statements predicting this system's imminent demise and identifying Middle Mountain farming practices as major contributors to downstream sedimentation and flooding have long been promoted and have suggested the following research hypothesis: soil and sediment dynamics and the indigenous management techniques within headwater Middle Mountains basins do not indicate a deterioration in the health of the agricultural system.

Eerste onderzoek naar maatschappelijk draagvlak van natuur

Access to land is increasingly becoming a problem in Africa as a result both of population growth and tenure reforms. The standard argument for tenure reform centres on the role of uncertainty in discouraging investment on land held without long-term security. The rationale for this 'replacement' paradigm, however, can be questioned on economic, ecological and social grounds. The history of land tenure reform in Kenya, especially that of group titles in the semiarid areas, is a case in point.