This report exemplifies the short, well-focuses formal survey emphasized in CIMMYT's on-farm research procedures. The survey was done in northern Veracruz, Mexico, where CIMMYT Maize Production Training carries out on-farm experiments. The report summarizes farmers' circumstances, describes management practices in maize, and draws conclusions for research opportunities.

Investigations of grasslands in Latvia started at the beginning of the 20ty century. One of the main goals was investigation of vegetation classification. In Latvia typology of natural grasslands in several investigation periods is based on different criterions: (1) economic typology, (2) grasslands vegetation physionomic classification according to dominant method, (3) classification of flora according to Braun-Blanquet method.

Since 2004, we have witnessed an increased demand in the acquisition of agricultural property, both by individual farmers and entities not previously associated with agriculture. A significant increase in the transaction prices of agricultural real estate in recent years has been caused by the impact of limited agricultural land supply and external factors related to the functioning of Polish agriculture in the economy of the European Community. The value of agricultural real estate is affected by many factors that are taken into account when determining the value of real estate.

Regulations require that real property cadastral assessment should be used internationally recognized real property evaluation methods - the method of comparison, cost method and income capitalization method. The study assessed content and nature of evaluation methods. The studied, which the evaluation methods today are likely to use in the cadastral assessment and which depends on the database of stored information. The main conclusion of the study is that the cadastral assessment using as many methods possible to obtain a more objective cadastral value.

The article provides with a description of sectorial and regional planning in the Republic of Belarus which consists of a hierarchically organized system of socio-economic development programs of the republic, its regions and districts as well as the complex of documents of regional planning. Being under development the land tenure schemes for administrative districts should be most closely linked to the Programs of socio-economic development of the districts. For the next five-year plan it’s proposed the standard structure of the document.

Generally, sustainability dimension is related to a context, timing and scale. Although the context of sustainability can be various – either general or more specific, the timing is oriented to the long-term, but the scale has a global nature. The main purpose of the paper is to assess analytically the sustainable development concept.

Cadastral valuation model for building land has been approved by Regulations of Cabinet, and is expressed by a mathematical formula. The elements of cadastral valuation model for building land are the following: the base value of the building land, the land area under jurisdiction conditioned by the purpose of use, correction coefficient of the area, the correction coefficient accounting for the changes in the market, the correction coefficient of encumbrances and the correction coefficient of pollution.

After summarizing experience of various countries in the field of landscape monitoring, it appears that the real changes of landscape have to be observed in a large scale (not smaller than 1:10,000) in order to avoid generalization of small landscape elements.

The paper explores primarily social economic aspects of sustainable land management that vary among the Baltic countries. Land and associated to it valuable resources form the basis for any land use, land development and land protection activities, and thus – provide social economic benefits. The study is related to supervision of enforcement of the regulatory enactments that should be suitable to both the particular social economic distinctions and traditions.

Land quality assessment is one of the most important characteristics that affect the real estate cadastral value, which is used as the base value for the rural cadastral evaluation. The study evaluated soil quality assessment in the parishes of Latvia. The study deals with the analysis of the agricultural land area and the evaluation of the county real property expert survey results. The study has led to the conclusion that the soil quality assessment is important data for the determination of cadastral value.

Decades of research have led to substantially improved understanding of the nature of food insecurity. A combination of economic growth and targeted programs resulted in a steady fall (until the food crisis of 2007/08) in the percentage of the world’s population suffering from undernutrition (from 20% in 1990/92 to 16% in 2006). Yet over a billion people still face both chronic and/or transitory food insecurity due to long-standing problems of inadequate income, low-productivity in agricultural production and marketing, and related problems of poor health and absence of clean water.