The International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID), a global network organization with 106 member countries in its fold, is dedicated to the promotion of best practices in water for agriculture, and addresses water supply and management for food production, including drainage and flood control. While striving to improve water and land management, and enhancing the world supply of food and fibre, ICID takes on board environmental concerns and seeks sustainable solutions.

Three smallholder villages located in typical communal (from 1948), old (1987) and new (2002) resettlement areas, on loamy sand, sandy loam and clay soils, respectively, were selected to explore differences on natural resource management and land productivity. Focus group discussions and surveys were carried out with farmers. Additionally, farmers in three wealth classes per village were chosen for a detailed assessment of their main production systems.

There have been major shifts/changes in land use patterns in Rwanda over the past twelve years. A few striking observations include: As a percentage of total farmland, cultivated land increased. The increase in cultivated land occurred at the expense of pasture and fallow and woodlot. The share of pasture and fallow decreased from 22% in 1990 to 14% in 2002 and woodlot decreased from 11% in 1990 to 7% in 2002. This trend of increasing cultivated land is apparent from the mid-eighties to today.

PURPOSE: Livestock already use most global agricultural land, whereas the demand for animal-source food (ASF) is expected to increase. To address the contribution of livestock to global food supply, we need a measure for land use efficiency of livestock systems. METHODS: Existing measures capture different aspects of the debate about land use efficiency of livestock systems, such as plant productivity and the efficiency of converting feed, especially human-inedible feed, into animal products. So far, the suitability of land for cultivation of food crops has not been accounted for.

In order to identify sustainable management solutions for small-scale farmer agroecosystems, a better understanding of these dynamic forest–farmland systems, existing farming and forestry strategies, and farmer perspectives is important. We examined the relationship between agricultural land use patterns and farmers’ practices and identified existing and potential characteristics of healthy agroecosystems at local scale in the context of village communities in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

Az élelmiszerárak növekedése 2006–2008 között a világ egyes térségeiben zavargásokhoz és a politikai stabilitás megrendüléséhez vezetett. Különösen fejlődő országokban súlyos a helyzet, ahol a legszegényebb rétegek jövedelmük döntő hányadát élelmiszerekre költik. Az agrárpiacokon a kereslet vált meghatározóvá, mennyiségi (humáncélú és ipari felhasználás rohamos növekedése) és minőségi értelemben (élelmiszer-fogyasztás szerkezetének változása).

The inverse relationship between land productivity and farm size is an old and puzzling empirical regularity. Most explanations for this relationship rely on market imperfections that jointly determine the farm size and the household's shadow price of some productive inputs. We use plot-level data from the ICRISAT/VLS to assess whether these household-specific theories can explain the puzzle. The data exhibit plots of different sizes being simultaneously cropped by the same household.

Population pressures and the need to optimize the use of limited available land has led to increasing cropping affluence levels within the maize agro-ecologies in Kenya, and a shift from large to smallholder intensification and multiple cropping patterns. Using a geographic information system, this study relates cropping patterns, by area share, maize productivity and household incomes across maize agro-ecologies, with the purpose to establish a decision support system for optimizing land allocation and in priority setting for introduction of new technologies such as Bt maize varieties.

Severe soil erosion and food security problems are the most important issues in the Loess Plateau of northern China, which are closely related to the over-cultivation and poor management of marginal land resources. Alleviation of these unsustainability problems requires, among many other things, alternative and innovative cropping systems. This paper describes the identification of such cropping systems and their quantitative evaluation.

Among the world’s continents, Africa has the highest incidence of food insecurity and poverty and the highest rates of population growth. Yet Africa also has the most arable land, the lowest crop yields, and by far the most plentiful land resources relative to energy demand. It is thus of interest to examine the potential of expanded modern bioenergy production in Africa. Here we consider bioenergy as an enabler for development, and provide an overview of modern bioenergy technologies with a comment on application in an Africa context.

Food security remains an ongoing global concern: the challenge of ensuring food availability, access, and utility for all, at all times, is yet to be met. The body of literature relating to food security is growing immensely. Land administrators are part of the discourse. Their arguments are spread disparately across academic and professional publications. The distinction between scientific work and political rhetoric is increasingly blurry: the role of land administration needs to be more concisely articulated.