"African agriculture is at a crossroads. The current high food prices and the instability they have provoked in several countries have added impetus for African countries to review their agricultural policies and programs. New agricultural policies will have to be more focused on staple food crops and on their main producers-smallholders, most of whom are women. The new policies must remove constraints that impede access by smallholder farmers to the knowledge, technology, and financial services they need to increase farm productivity in a profitable and environmentally sustainable manner.

La demanda de biocombustibles se está incrementando debido a la necesidad cada vez mayor de energéticos, el alza en el costo del petróleo, la búsqueda de fuentes de energía renovables y no contaminantes y el deseo de aumentar los ingresos agrícolas en los países en desarrollo. Asimismo, ha aumentado en forma drástica la necesidad de contar con cultivos, como el maíz y la caña de azúcar, que pueden utilizarse como materia prima para producir biocombustibles. Esta demanda ha tenido a nivel mundial un impacto significativo y cada vez mayor en los sistemas alimentarios.

Common-pool resource management is a critical element in the interlocked challenges of food security, nutrition, poverty reduction, and environmental sustainability. This paper examines strategic policy choices and governance challenges facing Cambodia‘s forests and fisheries, the most economically important subsectors of agriculture that rely on common-pool resources. It then outlines policy priorities for institutional development to achieve improvements in implementing these goals.

High food prices are not only causing a humanitarian crisis, but also putting at risk the development potential of millions of people. Global agriculture markets are undergoing structural changes, and the next three to four years will pose great challenges for achieving an affordable and accessible food supply for the world's most vulnerable. Soaring food and fuel prices are creating a "perfect storm" for the world's most vulnerable.

Agriculture and climate change are inextricably linked. Agriculture is part of the climate change problem, contributing about 13.5 percent of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (with forestry contributing an additional 19 percent), compared with 13.1 percent from transportation. Agriculture is, however, also part of the solution, offering promising opportunities for mitigating GHG emissions through carbon sequestration, soil and land use management, and biomass production.

"Part of the difficulty in responding to the food crisis is the lack of credible and up-todate data on the impacts of food prices on poor people and on the effects of policy responses. Such information would allow international and national decision makers to use feedback to adjust their responses and achieve maximum effectiveness. Much more investment and sound coordination is needed in this area. So far, national and international responses to the food crisis are mixed in terms of their likely effectiveness.

In 2008, a year in which the global population—particularly the world’s poor—was confronted by both the financial and food-price crises, agricultural systems faced changes that led to market disruptions, reduced growth, mass protests, and a string of political efforts to reshape the design and governance of food systems.

This brief defines property rights and collective action and discusses the links to sustainability of natural resource management and agricultural systems and to poverty reduction, as well as the implications for policy and practice.

Fisheries are complex and interdependent ecological and social systems that require integrated management approaches. The actions of one person or group of users affect the availability of the resource for others. Managing such common pool resources requires conscious efforts by a broad range of stakeholders to organize and craft rules enabling equitable and sustainable use of the resources for everyone?s benefit. Collective action is often a prerequisite for the development of community-based institutions and the devolution of authority...

In this brief, we explore the role that social institutions -specifically property rights and collective action - may play in the development of agroforestry.... In the future, property rights and collective action will play increasingly pivotal roles in defining rights and responsibilities over the externalities of tree management practices.

Agricultural growth will prove essential for improving the welfare of the vast majority of Africa’s poor. Roughly 80 percent of the continent’s poor live in rural areas, and even those who do not will depend heavily on increasing agricultural productivity to lift them out of poverty. Seventy percent of all Africans— and nearly 90 percent of the poor—work primarily in agriculture. As consumers, all of Africa’s poor—both urban and rural—count heavily on the efficiency of the continent’s farmers.

Las instituciones de acción colectiva y los sistemas de derechos de propiedad moldean la forma en que la gente usa los recursos naturales.A su vez, estos patrones de uso afectan los resultados de los sistemas de producción agrícola de la gente. Juntos, los mecanismos de acción colectiva y los sistemas de derechos de propiedad definen los incentivos a los que la gente accede por llevar a cabo estrategias de gestión sostenible y productiva, y afectan el nivel y distribución de los beneficios de los recursos naturales.