Family farms are often associated with greater sustainability. But the definition of sustainability is a highly disputable topic. The School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences (HAFL) in Switzerland has developed a method enabling a more objective evaluation of sustainability in agriculture. Response-Inducing Sustainability Evaluation (RISE) covers ten sustainability indicators and supplies the foundation for agricultural advice.

Recent studies have shown that modern breeding for high yield, visual appearance and long shelf life led to an unintentional decline in taste and the content of essential nutrients in vegetables. AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center is studying whether traditional vegetables are more nutritious than modern varieties and whether early growth stages of these vegetables offer consumers a higher content of phytonutrients.

Poverty in rural households have deepened in the past two years through world events: unprecedented rises in food and fuel prices were followed by global economic meltdown, all amidst growing climate uncertainty. Balancing water availability within and across growing seasons, water harvesting helps to buffer households against drought. Research on water harvesting in South Africa has focused on rural household livelihoods. Innovative results on appropriate water harvesting technologies and food security facilitation techniques are now being implemented in villages across South Africa.

A team of German and Spanish scientists has genetically modified a maize plant in a way that markedly increases the level of three vitamins in the maize kernels. The level of betacarotene, the precursor to vitamin A, was raised by a factor of 169, the level of vitamin C increased six-fold and the level of folic acid, a vitamin of the B group, doubled.

Since 1996, the Centres for Agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics of the Universities of Hohenheim and Göttingen and of Berlin's Humboldt University have organised a conference, the ''Tropentag'', once a year to present and discuss recent findings in research on agriculture and rural development. Other universities, like Kassel-Witzenhausen, have joined in, and the number of participants, papers and posters presented has more than doubled.

In October 2014, for the first time in recent history, the government of Myanmar decided to organize a public consultation to inform the development of a national policy. To support this consultation process, several organizations decided to organize civil society pre-consultation activities to listen and gather concerns from smallholder farmers to formulate relevant recommendations for the policy dialogue.

This presentation summarizes an on-going research in Myanmar, carried out by renowned agricultural specialist U San Thein and a team of experts, with the support of MRLG. This research is based on a thorough analysis of records on vacant, fallow and virgin land allotted for mainly agri-business projects between 1992 and 2016, and also an analysis of the reports of the Parliamentary Investigation Commission on land confiscation and the return of land. The study also included interview responses from key government staff in all concerned line ministries.

This short thematic study challenges the assumption that the legal framework to recognize and protect indigenous peoples’ (IP) customary lands is adequate and that the challenge lies in its implementation. With support from MRLG, a core group of IP NGOs of the Cambodia Indigenous Peoples Alliance (CIPA) held a series of seminars to scrutinize this legal framework, identify gaps and make recommendations for a revision of the supporting legal framework. The thematic study documents this joint reflection.

This short thematic study challenges the assumption that the legal framework to recognize and protect indigenous peoples’ (IP) customary lands is adequate and that the challenge lies in its implementation. With support from MRLG, a core group of IP NGOs of the Cambodia Indigenous Peoples Alliance (CIPA) held a series of seminars to scrutinize this legal framework, identify gaps and make recommendations for a revision of the supporting legal framework. The thematic study documents this joint reflection.

The eucalypt sector in Lao PDR consists of several large eucalypt developers and a growing smallholder base. This Discussion Paper, developed through a multi-stakeholder process coordinated by Earth Systems, assesses the status of and explores key challenges and opportunities for the sustainable development of the eucalypt sector in Lao PDR. 

The handbook introduces key economic and related concepts explaining the functioning of urban land markets. By introducing key classical economic concepts, the handbook provides foundational economic terms that are often referred to in relation to urban land markets. In doing this, we do not imply that African land markets should or ought to 'fit' into neo-classical economic theories, nor do we propose that 'perfect' markets exist.

Les chercheurs de l’université de Californie font état d’une surprenante découverte: un gène qui «étanchéifie» les plants de riz les protège également de la sécheresse. Le gène Sub1a, naturellement présent dans certaines variétés à faible rendement, en Inde, a été découvert dans les années 1990 à l’Institut international de recherche sur le riz, aux Philippines.