Large-scale agricultural land investments in Africa are often considered solely from the land perspective. Yet land, water and other natural resources are closely interlinked in agricultural production and in sustaining rural livelihoods. Such investments involving irrigation will potentially have implications for water availability and utilization by other users, making it imperative to regard water as an economic rather than a free good.

We acknowledge financial support to this research by ACIAR, DFID, ESPA, ESRC,NERC and the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

The way we produce food must adapt to a variable and changing climate. And key to achieving this is to improve the link between climate information and agricultural practices, especially those of smallholder farmers in developing countries. ‘Agro-climate tools’ do just that and some are introduced here.

This paper synthesizes knowledge within CGIAR and its partners on agricultural practices and technologies to enhance food security, resilience and productivity in a sustainable manner. A number of agricultural practices and technologies which contribute to these objectives were identified and assessed to generate four key lessons.

G-Range is a global model that simulates generalized changes in rangelands through time,

created with support from the International Livestock Research Institute. Spatial data and a set

of parameters that control plant growth and other ecological attributes in landscape units

combine with computer code to represent ecological process such as soil nutrient and water

dynamics, vegetation growth, fire, and wild and domestic animal offtake. The model is spatial,

with areas of the world divided into square cells.

Rangeland scientists and quantitative ecologists have developed numerous methods and monitoring techniques that can be used for vegetation sampling (Barbour et al. 1987). The methods used to position samples (transects, quadrats, lines, and points) vary and can be classed as selective, capricious, systematic, or random. One of the prerequisites for valid statistical inference is that samples are taken randomly. A random sampling procedure implies that all elements or units of the population being studied have an equal chance of being represented in the sample.

The contemporary concern about anthropogenic release of greenhouse gas (GHG) into the

environment and the contribution of livestock to this phenomenon have sparked animal

scientists’ interest in predicting methane (CH4) emissions by ruminants. Focusing on milk

production, we address six basic nutrition models or feeding standards (mostly empirical

systems) and five complex nutrition models (mostly mechanistic systems), describe their key

characteristics, and highlight their similarities and differences. Four models were selected to

The Amazon Basin is so diverse that one could say many Amazons exist, not just one. Indeed, its diversity is considered unique in the world. Although the Basin occupies 7% of the planet’s land, it carries 25% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. The region is so vast, it represents one-third of South America’s land surface. It covers, or partly covers, nine countries: Colombia (36% of the land area), Venezuela and Guyana (6% each), Suriname and French Guiana (almost 100% each), Brazil (60%), Bolivia and Peru (75% together), and Ecuador (45%).

Amazonia’s abundant natural resources underpin water, energy, food and health security for the people and economies of the region and far beyond. At the heart of this nexus of securities is water. So abundant in the region, but now under increasing threat as industrial and agricultural pollution increases, and extreme droughts reveal a once unthinkable water vulnerability.