The adoption of crop-livestock integration (CLI) among smallholder farmers in the developing countries is no doubt one of the solutions to food security, risk management, and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. However, adequate assessment on the current status of CLI becomes necessary for the development and its evolution among smallholder farmers. This article presents a basic and multi-objective linear programming (LP) model to determine enterprise combinations of crop and livestock activities that maximize total gross margin (TGM) among small farms in the Eastern Cape Province.

Farmland resources in mountainous areas are important for regional food security and ecological security. Studies concerning changes in farmland use in mountainous areas are of considerable significance in China. Here, we analyzed marginalization characteristics of farmland in Renhuai city from 2005 to 2011 and driving factors using land information systems, surveys of farmer households and statistical data. Our results indicate that from 2005 to 2011, 3095.76 hm² of farmland was converted to forest land and natural reserve, accounting for 5.45% of the total farmland area.

BACKGROUND: For agricultural systems to achieve climate-smart objectives, including improved food security and rural livelihoods as well as climate change adaptation and mitigation, they often need to be take a landscape approach; they must become ‘climate-smart landscapes’. Climate-smart landscapes operate on the principles of integrated landscape management, while explicitly incorporating adaptation and mitigation into their management objectives.

This paper presents a case study of land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes from 1975 to 2014 in the central highlands of Ethiopia and traces out its impact on socioeconomic conditions of the local community in the study area. We used four time series Landsat satellite images, that is, Landsat MSS (1975), Landsat Thematic Mapper (1986), Enhanced Thematic Mapper (2000), and Landsat 8 OLI scenes (2014), to investigate the changes in LULC.

Civil conflicts and the December 2004 tsunami have impeded the development of local fruit germplasm despite the inherent high quality and potential of Aceh’s fruit germplasm. Most of Aceh communities are composed of small scale farmers with land ownership averaging from 0.25 to 4 ha per capita; they plant various trees species (fruits, rubber, cocoa, etc.) in a mixed-tree based system (agroforestry) with extensive management. In Aceh' village markets most fruit is produced by local farmers.

Soils of the world’s agroecosystems (croplands, grazing lands, rangelands) are depleted of their soil organic carbon (SOC) pool by 25–75% depending on climate, soil type, and historic management. The magnitude of loss may be 10 to 50tonsC/ha. Soils with severe depletion of their SOC pool have low agronomic yield and low use efficiency of added input.

Over the past few years, agribusiness, investment funds and government agencies have been acquiring long-term rights over large areas of farmland in lower income countries. It is widely thought that private sector expectations of higher agricultural commodity prices and government concerns about longer-term food and energy security underpin much recent land acquisition for agricultural investments. These processes are expected to have lasting and far-reaching implications for world agriculture and for livelihoods and food security in recipient countries.

Face à l'inefficacité et l'inefficience des systèmes de commercialisation en ASS, la présente étude tente d’évaluer les marges commerciales et l’équité du commerce du maïs, du sorgho, du gari, de la tomate, de l’oignon, du poisson et du bétail au Togo. Elle conclut que les circuits commerciaux du pays s’intègrent dans un système commercial régional qui se traduit par des flux ouverts sur les pays voisins (Bénin, Ghana, Burkina) et lointains (Niger, Gabon). L’analyse des marges a permis de constater que le commerce des produits alimentaires est en général viable.

Spatio-temporal dynamics of pastoral grazing resources influences the pastoral production system. Obtaining timely and reliable information on the status of these resources will support planning and early response to climatic variability.

The sluggish increase in the area productivity of staple crops is a major factor causing increased dependence of African countries on food imports. The increased use of mineral fertiliser may dramatically improve the food balance of many countries and result in lower food prices, higher food supply and consumption, and improved food security and nutritional status. In Benin, West Africa, political measures to improve farmers' access to fertiliser are biased in favour of cotton production.

Study on household food security is very essential now that Nigeria is currently facing the problem of food crisis. This study presents findings on household food security in the North Central Nigeria (NCN). The first objective was to review and highlight the commonly used measures of households' food security with their pros and cons; second, to determine the food security status of households; and third, to analyse the determinants of household food security status in the study area.

Large-scale irrigation schemes have not yielded the expected outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Mauritania, average land productivity of rice schemes lies between 3 and 3.5tha⁻¹ and irrigated land has progressively being abandoned. At the same time, there is new international attention towards interventions in large-scale irrigation in the Sahel. Spatial and temporal variability of production are main causes of low productivity of large-scale irrigation schemes in Mauritania and threats to their sustainability.