In Bangladesh, agriculture is the most significant source of economic growth, it plays a fundamental role in the fight against poverty. The earning potential of most people is limited by their lack of skills, assets, and access to credit. The only lasting way is to ensure sustainable economic growth by implementing policies to promote financial stability and the efficient use of resources.

This article reviews the level of current scientific understanding regarding the impact of future change in the large-scale climate-earth system on ecosystem services. Impacts from sea level rise, ocean acidification, increases in ocean temperature, potential collapse of the thermohaline circulation; failure of the South Asia monsoon; the melting of sea ice, the Greenland Ice Sheet and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet; changes in water availability; and Amazonia forest dieback, are considered.

The transition to commercial agriculture is investigated in two communes from three ecological zones (mountain, plains, coastal) in Quang Binh Province, Vietnam. Field investigations were undertaken in late 2006 - early 2007 and again in 2008. One commune in each zone had good road infrastructure and associated market access, while the other had poor road access and was more distant from the market. Two rural households were selected from poor, medium and high wealth categories in each commune, providing 36 case households.

This paper explores the major interactions between the transformation of swidden farming and the pursuit of rural livelihoods in the uplands of Southeast Asia. The paper draws on selected literature, workshop reflections, and six case studies to describe the causal processes and livelihood consequences of swidden change.

Vihiga, one of the poorest and densely populated districts in Kenya is perpetually food deficit (GOK, 2005). While food demand continued to rise, production fell behind both targeted production and district demand. To make matters worse food deficit situation worsened over the last decade. Rising population and competition for resources have curtailed efforts to improve household food production in the district. Unfavorable poverty indicators in the district only make matters worse.

The conversion of marginal croplands to tree plantations, as an option to address climate change, land degradation, and irrigation water scarcity, as well as to improve the welfare of local population requires prior analysis.

A number of previous studies have emphasized the determinants of land-use change, as well as the management of communal lands in the pastoral systems, without assessing the effects of such changes on pastoralists/agro-pastoralists’ food security. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to assess the determinants of food security under changing land use and land management systems—from communal to private investment—using household survey data collected from pastoral and agro-pastoral communities. The data were analyzed using ordinary least-square econometric analysis.

Irrigated agriculture is widespread in the Central Asian drylands and important for food security of the region. However irrigation practices based on rules made for cotton production on large units do not provide adequate guidance for the now widespread small farms that produce cotton wheat and rice. Excessive unsustainable water use is the consequence. Land and water resource management practices were analysed in 2006 for the irrigated area (approx. 1885 ha) of a water users' association (WUA) as a case study.

Agriculture is extremely sensitive to climate and weather conditions. The resilience of our crop production systems to changes in climate can be enhanced by improved understanding impacts and responses of crops to changing climates. Several countries in Asia and Africa are at the risk of losing about 280 million tons of potential cereal production as a result of climate change factor, particularly increasing temperatures and prolonged dry periods.

Without support, the levels of agricultural public goods will fall short of the demand in high cost countries like Norway, Finland and Iceland. However, as demonstrated in this paper using Norway as a case, the current support and agricultural activity is far out of proportions from a public goods perspective. Model simulations show that at most 40% of the current support level can be defended by the public good argument. Furthermore, the present support, stimulating high production levels, is badly targeted at the public goods in question.

The global poor often prioritise immediate hazards of food insecurity over temporally more distant risks like global warming. Yet the influence of socio-economic factors, temporal and spatial distance on risk perception remains under-researched. Data on risk perception and response were collected from two sets of Indian villages. Participatory approaches were used to investigate variations by socio-economic status, food security, age and gender. Villagers’ risk priorities reflected clear spatial and temporal patterns depending on land ownership, community group and education levels.