Over the past thirty years, most of
Sub-Saharan Africa has seen rapid population growth, poor
agricultural performance, and increasing environmental
degradation. Why do these problems seem so intractable? Are
they connected? Do they reinforce each other? If so, what
are the critical links? This book tests the hypothesis that
these phenomena are strongly interrelated. The finding -
that this nexus is very much at work in Sub-Saharan Africa -

Accounting for around a third of the
1996 Goss Domestic Product (GDP) of US$ 9 billion (second
only to oil), and almost three-fourths of all employment,
agriculture is a dominant sector of the Cameroonian economy.
Also, as in most African countries, poverty in Cameroon is
concentrated in rural areas, with more than 80 percent
(approximately 5.5 million) of all poor people living in
such areas. The Government of Cameroon's objectives

Environmental degradation primarily
affects the poor, both in rural and urban areas. Reversing
the downward spiral of this degradation is essential to any
strategy for reducing poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. This
study outlines the World Bank's strategy for improving
its assistance to SSA countries as they move toward
environmentally sustainable development (ESD). It assesses
the environmental situation and long-term trends in Africa,

About half of Kenya's rural
population (approximately 9 million people) was the poverty
line in 1992, a proportion unchanged from 1982. In urban
areas, approximately a million and a quarter persons or 30
percent of the population was below the poverty line. In the
early 1980s, Kenya's social indicators were distinctly
more favorable than those of most countries in the region,
and there was further progress. But many indicators

Secure tenure rights and control over land for women and men farmers are key to boosting smallholder productivity, rural development and food security. However, in many parts of the world, men and women have inadequate access to secure property rights over land. Women are particularly disadvantaged: even though they constitute on average 43 percent of the agricultural labour force in developing countries, women’s ownership of agricultural land remains significantly lower than that of men.

In 2008, Ka Lita, a woman rice farmer in the Philippines, stood in a long line to buy rice that was being sold by the National Food Authority (NFA), the government’s rice trading agency. She had been standing under the hot sun for several hours, but she had no choice but to wait for her turn to buy rice from the NFA. The rice being sold by the government’s rice trading agency was the only rice that she could afford with her money.

Rising food prices, increasing climate instability and food riots have sparked profound political changes around the world and put agriculture high on the international agenda. What kind of agriculture is best suited to respond to those challenges, however, is the subject of profound disagreement. Too much of the current policy debate on food security, climate change and agriculture assumes that industrial agriculture and related biotechnology are the only options for feeding a growing global population.

Addressing the problem of hunger in a world where food production systems, particularly in developing countries, are being eroded and undermined by climate change is one of the most important challenges of our time. Studies by the Food and Agriculture organization (FAO), Oxfam and the Asian Development Bank, among others, underscore the significance of climate change impacts on agriculture and food production (FAO 2007, Oxfam 2009, ADB 2009).

This paper reviews the literature to identify the relationship between tenure security and food security. The literatures on tenure issues and food security issues are not well connected and the scientific evidence on the causal links between tenure security and food security is very limited. The paper explores the conceptual linkages between land tenure reforms, tenure security and food security and illustrates how these vary across diverse contexts.

Village Focus helps families in rural villages in Laos and Cambodia. Dependent on the natural abundance of the wilderness around them for all things, they are often victims of profiteering in many forms. Images from Pajujeun, Pajudon, Ta-oy, Saneung and Phorbeuy villages in Laos, and Siem Reap province, Battambang and Mondulkiri provinces in Cambodia. Scenes of bomb craters, Typhoon Ketsana's destruction, a sacred forest reserve, water and sanitation projects, and food cultivation.

 

Based on data from the Land Matrix database, this paper briefly analyses large-scale land acquisitions in the context of current complex and dynamic land and climate governance discourse. The paper tries to explain the inter linkages between land and climate governance, within the water-food-energy nexus, and the increasing and important role for science, technology and innovation in agriculture in order to become more resilient to current and future challenges in climate and land governance.

This publication is a lobby material to advocate the passage of the National Land Use Act. As one of the major outputs of the high level experts forum held last June 4, 2015, this abridged version of the proceedings highlights the experts’ discussion, answering the following key questions related to agriculture: