Large-scale land acquisitions have increased in scale and pace due to changes in commodity markets, agricultural investment strategies, land prices, and a range of other policy and market forces. The areas most affected are the global “commons” – lands that local people traditionally use collectively — including much of the world’s forests, wetlands, and rangelands. In some cases land acquisition occurs with environmental objectives in sight – including the setting aside of land as protected areas for biodiversity conservation.

Flood-based farming is among the potential options in ensuring access to water for crop and livestock production for small-scale farmers in the arid and semiarid lowlands of sub-Saharan Africa, and Ethiopia in particular. Flood-based irrigation while inexpensive is rooted in tradition in many rural communities which is in contrast to many other irrigation types which are unavailable (in terms of water source, technology or capacity) or are costly to develop.

Malawi has experienced a forward shift in its demand for Irish potato (Solanum tuberosum) consumption. Given limited resources at farmers' disposal, meeting the growing demand will require farmers to follow the efficient path of the farm production resources. This paper, therefore, is an attempt to measure the cost efficiency of smallholder Irish potato farmers in Dedza district of Malawi using a translog cost function, inefficiency effect model and input elasticities derived from a system of cost share equations estimated by Iterated Seeming Unrelated Regression method.

This thesis was carried out within the project ImGoats, a project led by ILRI and implemented by CARE in Mozambique, aiming at increasing the incomes and food security of poor smallholders through innovations in the meat goat value chain. From a bottom-up approach, the project developed different interventions and this thesis was focusing on one of them, the implementation of communal grazing land for goats, land that was not currently in use.