The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been trying hard to go into free trade agreements (FTAs) with different countries. It believes that this will increase trade and help members sell their export products to more markets in other countries. It also wants to make ASEAN the world's center of agricultural production. But in opening up markets and increasing trade, more imported goods from other countries can also come in.

WHAT IS MEANT BY AGRIBUSINESS?

Agribusiness as used in this paper refers to very big corporations that produce, process, trade, and market agricultural food products and agricultural inputs. Examples are corporations that produce inputs, such as seeds and fertilizers, and those that produce for supermarkets and retail chains. Transnational agribusiness companies are those that operate in the agriculture sector of many countries, usually with a huge volume of business.

There is a need to distinguish between small-scale, subsistence family-based farming, small to medium scale businesses in the agriculture sector that is the predominant mode in the global south on one hand and; the operations of agribusiness (whether a large local corporation or transnational corporation) found in the agricultural sector of many countries that are typically large in size and capital on the other.

The year of 2008 marked the beginning of a new phase at ICARDA: the full implementation of the Center's Strategic Plan 2007-2016, and a renewed commitment to addressing the global challenges of food security, poverty alleviation and climate change in the dry areas. It was also a year of adversity, both locally and globally. At ICARDA's main research station in Syria, the 2007/2008 cropping season experienced drought combined with wide variations in temperature, falling to -12°C in winter and rising to 37°C in the early spring.

Poverty in rural households have deepened in the past two years through world events: unprecedented rises in food and fuel prices were followed by global economic meltdown, all amidst growing climate uncertainty. Balancing water availability within and across growing seasons, water harvesting helps to buffer households against drought. Research on water harvesting in South Africa has focused on rural household livelihoods. Innovative results on appropriate water harvesting technologies and food security facilitation techniques are now being implemented in villages across South Africa.

Water is scarce in India's semiarid zones of Rajasthan. Climate change is putting additional pressure on the rare resources. Irregular or no rainfall forces many small farmers to abandon their fields, at least temporarily, and seek work in the towns. Participative water management projects as practiced in Bhipur village, growing crops with low water requirements and more sustainable farming practices are adaptation strategies that allow farmers to continue their activities despite climate risks.

Many adaptation measures urgently needed in agriculture today as a consequence of climate change concern water in agriculture and were already devised and implemented in the 1980s as a part of rural development activities. However, most of the experience and knowledge have sunk without trace. Systematic knowledge management at that time would have made it possible to benefit from this experience today in the planning and implementation of water-related adaptation measures, providing effective support for these measures and hastening their implementation.

A team of German and Spanish scientists has genetically modified a maize plant in a way that markedly increases the level of three vitamins in the maize kernels. The level of betacarotene, the precursor to vitamin A, was raised by a factor of 169, the level of vitamin C increased six-fold and the level of folic acid, a vitamin of the B group, doubled.

The study was carried out in three highland woredas (districts) of Chilga, Dembia and Gondar Zuria in north Gondar Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia. These woredas were purposively selected because of their long experience in transhumance cattle production system. The objectives of the study were to characterize the transhumance cattle production system, identify the major constraints and forward appropriate developmental interventions for the future. Informal and formal surveys were employed to collect qualitative and quantitative data.

Introduction: "The following report has been compiled to bring to the attention of a wider
audience many of the problems facing the people of Burma, especially its many
ethnic nationalities. For many outside observers, Burma’s problems are confined
simply to the ongoing incarceration of Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,
the country’s democratically elected leader, and many other political prisoners.
However, as we hope to show in the following report, this is only one of very