Rural-based economic activity can be just as effective for poverty reduction as that of urban sectors. Since the 1990s, rural transformation has lifted nearly as many people out of poverty as urban development. Many more will be able to climb out of poverty if greater priority is given to public investments in rural areas.
How to feed the world without degrading land and water resources, eroding biodiversity and contributing to climate change is among the greatest challenges of our times. FAO works with the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to support member countries in addressing the critical nexus between agriculture and the environment.
This booklet highlights a few success stories emanating from FAO's work with the GEF over the past two decades and presents an opportunity for member countries to further leverage from FAO's comparative advantages to create GEF-eligible development projects.
Сельское хозяйство Восточной Европы и Центральной Азии является разнообразным по характеру и обладает огромным потенциалом для развития экономики стран региона посредством повышения урожайности и общей продуктивности продовольственных, кормовых и технических культур. В этом плане, почвозащитное и ресурсосберегающее земледелие (ПРЗ) сможет выполнить масштабную задачу по устойчивой интенсификации производственных систем в регионе.
Degraded lands—lands that have lost some degree of their natural productivity through human activity—account for over 20 percent of forest and agricultural lands in Latin America and the Caribbean. Some 300 million hectares of the region’s forests are considered degraded, and about 350 million hectares are now classified as deforested. The agriculture and forestry sectors are growing and exerting great pressure on natural areas. With the region expected to play an increasingly important role in global food security, this pressure will continue to ratchet up.
Thirteen years after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, investment in women as agents of change in peacebuilding remains inadequate. One of the unexplored entry points for strengthening womens contributions to peacebuilding relates to the way in which they use, manage, make decisions on and benefit from natural resources.
Was the civil war in Sierra Leone (1991-2002) fought for diamonds, or was it a peasant insurgency motivated by agrarian grievances? The evidence on both sides is less than conclusive. Ibis article scrutinizes the peasant insurgency argument via a more rigorous methodology. Hypotheses concerning intra-peasant tensions over marriage and farm labour are derived from an examination of the anthropological literature.
This book examines the possibilities and limitations of corporate social responsibility in minimising the violent conflict often associated with natural resource exploitation. Through detailed and penetrating empirical analysis, the author skilfully asks why previous corporate social responsibility practices have not always achieved their aims.
This paper assesses the extent to which customary governance in Sierra Leone can be held responsible for an increasingly unstable two‐class agrarian society. A case is made for regarding the civil war (1991–2002) as being an eruption of long‐term, entrenched agrarian tensions exacerbated by chiefly rule. Evidence is presented to suggest that the main rebel movement embodied in its plans to reorganize agricultural production some grasp of these longer‐term agrarian problems. Postwar attempts to implement co‐operative farming and mining are then described.
The historical legacy in South Africa of apartheid and the resulting discriminatory policies and power imbalances are critical to understanding how water is managed and allocated, and how people participate in designated water governance structures. The progressive post-apartheid National Water Act (NWA) is the principal legal instrument related to water governance which has broadly embraced the principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of biostrips on the biodiversity of plants and game animals in fields near Sardice (Czech Republic) and to propose some improvements. The experiment was carried out in an organic farm with cereals as the main crops. The biodiversity was assessed by the line method (game birds and mammals) and according to Dostal (flora) and Braun-Blanqueta (plant coverage). As shown by our results biostrips have an important function in agroecosystems. We suggest to include seeds of sugar beet to the seed mixtures used in biostrips.