Rangelands, Drylands & Pastoralism

Prescribed burning is gaining attention as a vital tool for managing rangeland ecosystems in Sub-Saharan Africa, offering benefits for ecological restoration, biodiversity conservation, and overall land management. While fire is a natural and essential process that many ecosystems depend on, suppressing it can lead to the elimination of species and disrupt the ecological balance.

The aim of the study was to discover uncommon practices among families with well-nourished mothers and young children living in equally low socioeconomic circumstances in rural Madhya Pradesh that lead to improved nutrition outcomes.

East and Southern Africa is a climate hotspot, with more than US$45 billion in agricultural production at risk from higher temperatures, shorter growing seasons, and more extreme droughts and floods. Women play a strategic role in agricultural development and food security, often in labor-intensive activities.

Smallholder women farmers in the eastern Indian state of Odisha play a crucial role in the management of goat and backyard poultry. However, they face significant challenges due to fodder shortages, which adversely affect their livelihoods.

The increasing agricultural wages in rural India have lent significant R&D and policy support for laborsaving agricultural technologies. While some are heralded as ‘game changers’ in achieving food sufficiency goals, less research is devoted to understanding whether farmer adoption of these technologies worsens economic inequalities.

Climate change poses a profound threat to the wellbeing and sustainability of farming and farm-based livelihoods in fragile socioecological systems. Climatic challenges to farming have often been addressed by diverse forms of sustainable intensification that aim to maximize farm outputs and resource-use efficiency through climate-smart innovations.

Inclusive value-chain development aims to empower small-scale farmers and strengthen the agriculture sector. This study explores the impact of livelihood assets, access strategies, and enabling and discouraging factors on women’s and youth’s inclusion in surplus agricultural production and off-farm activities in Ethiopia and Mali.

This study addresses the knowledge gap regarding the specific gendered challenges faced by women smallholder farmers and the coping strategies deployed by them during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Studies on the gender gap in agricultural productivity rarely consider differences arising from the differential use of women workers on the farm. Yet, genderbased norms and frictions in the rural labor markets of women may lead to skill-based differences between hired and family labor—differences that are more distinct for women than men.

Although seed is an integral part of the agri-food system, it is often unavailable and unaffordable to smallholder farmers in rural areas, especially women and vulnerable groups. In addition, the poor extension system of getting seeds and information to farmers remains a drawback to adoption and increased productivity.

Ecological intensification has been embraced with great interest by the academic sector but is still rarely taken up by farmers because monitoring the state of different ecological functions is not straightforward. Modelling tools can represent a more accessible alternative of measuring ecological functions, which could help promote their use amongst farmers and other decision-makers.