This study was conducted with the objective of determining the returns to sustainable land management (SLM) at the national level in Bhutan. The study first uses satellite data on land change (Landsat) to examine land use change in 19902010 and its impact on sediment loading in hydroelectric power plants. The study then uses the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to analyze the impact of land use change and land management on sediment loading. The results from the land use change and SWAT analyses are used to assess the economic benefits of SLM.
While government spending on pro-poor community asset creation and income-transfers could have compounding positive effects on poverty reduction, it is important to first study trends in the allocation of funds, particularly as they relate to the susceptibility of the program to political clientelism. This paper uses expenditure data at the local level in Andhra Pradesh from Indias National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, a rights-based program distributing both public and private goods, to investigate the relationship between voting outcomes and program intensity in the seven years straddling a major election. By focusing on one state where accountability and transparency mechanisms have been employed and implementation efforts have been applauded, the authors do not find evidence of blatant vote buying before the 2009 election but do find that patronage played a small part in fund distribution after the 2009 election. Indeed most variation in expenditures is explained by the observed needs of potential beneficiaries, as the scheme intended.
This study assesses the future growth prospects of Rwanda. The report first focuses on broad economic growth using a rather aggregated 18-sector dynamic general equilibrium model to display the trade-off between rapid growth and structural change. The analysis shows that with the current investment pattern, rapid growth is possible but structural transformation is slow. With an overvalued exchange rate, growth in the tradable sector slows down and its share in the economy stays small. The importance of agriculture thus should be considered in the broad development strategy, for its role not only in poverty reduction but also in economic growth.
The government of Ethiopia is investing significant public resources to increase overall national production of teff, wheat, and maize. To better understand the likely economywide effects of increases of between 12 and 14 percent in the national production of these cereals, a set of production increase scenarios for each crop were run using a computable general equilibrium model of the Ethiopian economy. The analyses were extended to also consider the effects of several international wheat price and wheat import scenarios, a wheat subsidy program, and maize exports. Among the effects considered are changes in economic growth, prices, total household consumption, cereal and calorie consumption levels, and poverty measures.
Mountain food security and nutrition are core issues that can contribute positively to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals but paradoxically are often ignored in Zero Hunger and poverty reduction-related agenda. Under the overall leadership of José Graziano da Silva, the Former Director-General of FAO, sustainable mountain agriculture development is set as a priority in Asia and the Pacific, to effectively address this issue and assist Member Countries in tackling food insecurity and malnutrition in mountain regions. This comprehensive publication is the first of its kind that focuses on the multidimensional status, challenges, opportunities and solutions of sustainable mountain agriculture development for Zero Hunger in Asia. This publication is building on the ‘International Workshop and Regional Expert Consultation on Mountain Agriculture Development and Food Security and Nutrition Governance’, held by FAO RAP and UIR in November 2018 Beijing, in collaboration with partners from national governments, national agriculture institutes, universities, international organizations and international research institutes. The publication provides analysis with evidence on how mountain agriculture could contribute to satisfying all four dimensions of food security, to transform food systems to be nutrition-sensitive, climate-resilient, economically-viable and locally adaptable. From this food system perspective, the priority should be given to focus on specialty mountain product identification (e.g. Future Smart Food), production, processing, marketing and consumption, which would effectively expose the potential of mountain agriculture to contribute to Zero Hunger and poverty reduction. In addition, eight Asian country case studies not only identify context-specific challenges within biophysical-technical, policy, socio-economic and institutional dimensions.
This volume deals with land degradation, which is occurring in almost all terrestrial biomes and agro-ecologies, in both low and high income countries and is stretching to about 30% of the total global land area. About three billion people reside in these degraded lands. However, the impact of land degradation is especially severe on livelihoods of the poor who heavily depend on natural resources. The annual global cost of land degradation due to land use and cover change (LUCC) and lower cropland and rangeland productivity is estimated to be about 300 billion USD. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) accounts for the largest share (22%) of the total global cost of land degradation. Only about 38% of the cost of land degradation due to LUCC - which accounts for 78% of the US$300 billion loss – is borne by land users and the remaining share (62%) is borne by consumers of ecosystem services off the farm. The results in this volume indicate that reversing land degradation trends makes both economic sense, and has multiple social and environmental benefits. On average, one US dollar investment into restoration of degraded land returns five US dollars. The findings of the country case studies call for increased investments into the rehabilitation and restoration of degraded lands, including through such institutional and policy measures as strengthening community participation for sustainable land management, enhancing government effectiveness and rule of law, improving access to markets and rural services, and securing land tenure. The assessment in this volume has been conducted at a time when there is an elevated interest in private land investments and when global efforts to achieve sustainable development objectives have intensified. In this regard, the results of this volume can contribute significantly to the ongoing policy debate and efforts to design strategies for achieving sustainable development goals and related efforts to address land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
Despite the rise of targeted input subsidy programs in Africa over the last decade, several questions remain as to whether low and variable soil fertility, frequent drought, and high fertilizer prices render fertilizer unprofitable for large subpopulations of African farmers. To examine these questions, we use large-scale, panel experimental data from maize field trials throughout Malawi to estimate the expected physical returns to fertilizer use conditional on a range of agronomic factors and weather conditions. Using these estimated returns and historical price and weather data, we simulate the expected profitability of fertilizer application over space and time. We find that the fertilizer bundles distributed under Malawis subsidy program are almost always profitable in expectation, although our results may be reasonably interpreted as upper-bound estimates among more skilled farmers given that the experimental subjects were not randomly selected.
The years 2021 to 2030 have been designated as "The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration". Ecological restoration and biodiversity conservation efforts face unprecedented challenges, especially in developing countries and areas, such as the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region. This huge HKH region, which includes areas in eight separate countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, India, China, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan), is a biodiversity hotspot with a vast array of ecosystems, landscapes, peoples and cultures. It is known as one of 'the pulses of the world'. However, the HKH is also the world's largest and poorest mountain region, where landscapes and environments have been severely damaged as a result of climate change and human activities. Coordinating conservation and restoration policies, sharing knowledge and funds, and maintaining livelihoods are major challenges and are in urgent need of improvement. This book details the past and current ecological problems in the HKH region, and the threats and challenges that ecosystems and local people face. It pays special attention to developments of transformative adaptations and presents examples of sustainable conservation and ecological restoration management practices. This book is essential reading for ecologists and conservation biologists involved in large-scale ecological restoration projects, along with practitioners, graduate students, policy makers and international development workers.
This paper presents what is known about the role of agrarian reform and the subsequent counter reform in producing a successful dynamic evolution of Chilean agriculture.
This report is a component of the Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS)-funded project Impacts of Climate Extremes on Future Water and Food Security in South Asia and East Africa. The goal of the project was to characterize extreme drought events, to improve on a methodology to assess the probability of these events in the future under climate change, to illustrate their impacts, and to provide suggestions on coping strategies. The present report sets the stage for the overall project by undertaking a review of the causes of vulnerability to drought in East Africa and the western Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) of South Asia, and discussing the options to increase resilience to drought in the agricultural sector. Agriculture is a high-risk endeavor in both regions, due to a combination of recurrent droughtswhich may intensify due to climate changepoor soil fertility, and a host of constraints faced by farmers, especially low access to input and output markets. These factors, combined with farmers high aversion to risk, stifle investments in agriculture, resulting in continuous underachieving production, low income, and persisting poverty.
