De land- en tuinbouw ontwikkelt zich in de richting van steeds intensievere en complexere bedrijfssystemen. Vanuit de sector groeit het besef dat de chemische benadering van ziekten en plagen haar grenzen begint te bereiken. Ook de consument verlangt van de producent dat de inzet van chemische middelen gereduceerd wordt en gezocht wordt naar andere, meer duurzame oplossingen. Een van de oplossingsrichtingen is het creëren van een gezonde, veerkrachtige en weerbare bodem.

Land degradation is increasingly recognised as global challenge and is even pushed for as candidate for a (post-2015) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). The ‘quality of soil’ has been linked to the emergence of conflict, inter alia since it aggravates food and water scarcity. It is an underestimated, but essential element in the nexus of global challenges related to food, water and energy. This Clingendael Report, finds, amongst others, that accurate assessments on land degradation and efforts to restore lands are still lacking to date.

The first years of the twenty-first century will be remembered for a global land rush of nearly unprecedented scale. An estimated 500 million acres, an area eight times the size of Britain, was reported bought or leased across the developing world between 2000 and 2011, often at the expense of local food security and land rights. When the price of food spiked in 2008, pushing the number of hungry people in the world to over one billion, the interest of investors spiked as well, and within a year foreign land deals in the developing

This report explores how the management of land-based biomass production and consumption can be developed towards a higher degree of sustainability across different scales: from the sustainable management of soils on the field to the sustainable management of global land use as a whole. Under business as usual conditions, the growing demand for food and non-food biomass could lead to a gross expansion of cropland in the range of 320 to 850 million hectares by 2050.

Desertification is a silent, invisible crisis that is destabilizing communities on a global scale. As the effects of climate change undermine livelihoods, inter-ethnic clashes are breaking out within and across states and fragile states are turning to militarization to control the situation.

The Land Use Consolidation Act (LUC) was introduced in 2008 and is an important
component of agricultural policy in Rwanda. As part of the Government of Rwanda’s
broader Crop Intensification Program (CIP), LUC entails participating farmers
consolidating aspects of their operations with neighboring farmers, while retaining
individual ownership of their parcels. LUC farmers also agree to grow a single priority
crop that has been identified by the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI) as best suited to

Communal lands are central to the livelihoods of many Tanzanians, particularly to pastoralists and hunter-gatherer groups. But a number of factors can undermine the security of these lands remaining ‘communal,’ in turn threatening the livelihoods of many people and cultures. This brief sets out a new mechanism for strengthening community land rights by securing local tenure through acquiring a Certificate of Customary Right of Occupancy (CCRO).

Climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability span a vast range of topics.With the deepening of knowledge about climate change, we see connections in expanding and diverse areas, activities, and assets at risk. Early research focused on direct impacts of temperature and rainfall on humans, crops, and wild plants and animals. New evidence points to the importance of understanding not only these direct impacts but also potential indirect impacts, including impacts that can be transmitted around the world through trade, travel, and security.

Zambia Agriculture Development Goal:

Reduce poverty through broadbased income growth for those in the agricultural sector

Zambia’s Economic Achievements:

Classified as low-middle income by World Bank
 GDP growing at 6% per annum
 Agricultural growth rate at 7%, above 6% CAADP Goal
 Three consecutive maize bumper harvest years

Land has many uses. It provides water, food and energy. It is used to create wealth and employment and grow economies. And it provides other, often less obvious and tangible, services such as conserving biodiversity, storing carbon, purifying and storing water. It even regulates the Earth’s climate, for instance, by absorbing the heat from the sun. All of its uses are undermined and destroyed when land is degraded. Degrading the land disrupts these functions and leads to severe food, water and energy shortages.