The effects of soil bunds on runoff, losses of soil and nutrients, and crop yield are rarely documented in the Central Highlands of Ethiopia. A field experiment was set up consisting of three treatments: (i) barley‐cultivated land protected with graded soil bunds (Sb); (ii) fallow land (F); and (iii) barley‐cultivated land without soil bund (Bc). For 3 years (2007–2009), the effect of soil bunds on runoff, losses of soil and nutrients, and crop productivity was studied.

Internationally, there is interest in increasing the trade in ‘green’ market products, such as organic, fair trade, reduction of deforestation and forest degradation/reduction of deforestation and forest degradation+ for reduced deforestation and mitigation of climate change, and environmental goods and services. This crucially needs to be extended to the many poor, hungry and marginalized smallholder farmers in developing countries.

To address land degradation and rural poverty the Chinese government has put in place a series of land conversion programmes in the Loess Plateau area in northern China. In addition to problems arising from unsustainable land use, water resource availability driven in part by climatic forcing is also a threat to livelihoods in this region. To understand climate impacts on farming practice in poor areas of China, field observation and village reconnaissance took place in the summer of 2009 in three selected counties of Shaanxi and Ningxia Province, northern China.

Climate change is projected to substantially alter the hydrological cycles of mountainous regions, with pronounced consequences for the human settlements in these areas. Because projections of climatic changes and their environmental and societal impacts in local settings are uncertain, policies to reduce vulnerability and strengthen adaptation should be informed by ongoing processes in sites already exposed to climatic variability and change.

Historical tensions between Nigeria's pastoralist Fulani and settled indigenous farmers have intensified in recent years, with dwindling natural resources and land availability greatly contributing to the ongoing, escalating conflict in the north of the country. The urgent requirement to engage with, rather than isolate, Nigeria's Fulani from various socioeconomic and environmental management strategies is fundamental to peace and agricultural productivity in the region.

Farmers are key actors in land management confronted with society’s increasing demand for public goods. Understanding farmers’ values and motivations is essential to policy makers to foster more sustainable production practices. So far, no definite value profile for European farmers exists. Based on Schwartz’s theory of basic human values, we statistically analyzed six rounds of the European Social Survey to explore farmers’ value orientations in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland.

This article evaluates the equity performance of bulk water allocation as an irrigation management strategy in the Mahaweli Ganga Development Project, Sri Lanka. Through semi-structured interviews with farmers and irrigation officials, the study collected local perceptions using seven indicators: water rights; decision-making process; contribution of resources for irrigation maintenance; water allocation rules; actual water distribution; information sharing; and conflict resolution.

Decision support to develop viable climate change adaptation strategies for agriculture and regional land use management encompasses a wide range of options and issues. Up to now, only a few suitable tools and methods have existed for farmers and regional stakeholders that support the process of decision-making in this field. The interactive model-based spatial information and decision support system LandCaRe DSS attempts to close the existing methodical gap.

This study analyzes urban expansion and the peri-urban land tenure security situation in Amhara National Regional State of Ethiopia, taking Bahir Dar and Debre Markos as case studies. To detect the extent of urban expansion, data from Landsat satellite images were analyzed using ERDAS IMAGINE, ENVI, and ArcGIS segmentation, classification, and mapping tools. The land tenure security situation was assessed through interviews with local farmers.

This study examines the socio-economic and financial performances of irrigation projects under the Ogun-Oshun River Basin and Rural Development Authority (O-ORBRDA) in Nigeria. Primary data on the farming activities of the project farmers during the 2001/02 seasons and the projects' records for the period of 1995/96 to 2001/02 were summarised into socio-economic and financial performance indicators. In the Sepeteri Project, a revenue recovery level of 96% was estimated. The project is not financially viable as only 29% of its recurrent expenditure is covered.

Traditional methods in agricultural economics and agricultural engineering have yielded mixed results when specifying the costs of an unfavourable parcel structure. Concepts related to travel costs and the production function are frequently applied when the costs of farming distant parcels are examined. However, farmers’ perspective regarding preferences for land use is ignored or partly overlapped by predictions made by researchers.

Herbivores are a significant source of nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions. They account for a large share of manure-related N₂O emissions, as well as soil-related N₂O emissions through the use of grazing land, and land for feed and forage production. It is widely acknowledged that mitigation measures are necessary to avoid an increase in N₂O emissions while meeting the growing global food demand. The production and emissions of N₂O are closely linked to the efficiency of nitrogen (N) transfer between the major components of a livestock system, that is, animal, manure, soil and crop.