The agriculture, nutrition, and health nexus came to prominence in 2011. With 1 billion people continuing to suffer from food insecurity, and with vitamin and mineral deficiencies compromising the nutrition and health of billions of people, the international development community began to ask how much more could agriculture do to improve human wellbeing if it explicitly included nutrition and health goals?

This 2012 Global Food Policy Report is the second in an annual series that provides an in-depth look at major food policy developments and events. Initiated in response to resurgent interest in food security, the series offers a yearly overview of the food policy developments that have contributed to or hindered progress in food and nutrition security. It reviews what happened in food policy and why, examines key challenges and opportunities, shares new evidence and knowledge, and highlights emerging issues.

This 2012 Global Food Policy Report is the second in an annual series that provides an in-depth look at major food policy developments and events. Initiated in response to resurgent interest in food security, the series offers a yearly overview of the food policy developments that have contributed to or hindered progress in food and nutrition security. It reviews what happened in food policy and why, examines key challenges and opportunities, shares new evidence and knowledge, and highlights emerging issues.

Many opportunities exist for mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through better management of trees and soils. There is potential for both direct mitigation through better management of carbon in agricultural landscapes and indirect mitigation through reduced pressure on carbon stored in forests, peatlands, and wetlands. Effectively harnessing these opportunities will take bold action in climate change negotiations.

According to the Climate Risk Index, less developed countries are generally more affected than industrialised countries. The countries affected most in 2013 were the Philippines, Cambodia and India. For the period from 1994 to 2013 Honduras, Myanmar and Haiti rank highest. Regarding future climate change, the Climate Risk Index may serve as a red flag for already existing vulnerability that may further increase in regions where extreme events will become more frequent or more severe due to climate change.

Tenure rights over land, forest, and carbon have become a contentious issue within REDD+ implementation across the tropics because local communities could be excluded from REDD+ benefits if land tenure or use and access rights are not clear. This study aims to understand and assess tenure arrangements under the fi rst REDD+ demonstration project in Cambodia, the Oddar Meanchey Community Forestry REDD+ Project. In particular, the study explores the following questions: (1) How are tenure rights arranged in the Oddar Meanchey REDD+ Project?

This report provides an outline of protected areas and biodiversity in the Lower Mekong Basin. The analysis contains an overview of threats to protected areas from climate change, as well as non-climate threats such as land concessions, infrastructure development, illegal activities, and agriculture.

Drylands make up about 43 percent of the region’s land surface, account for about 75 percent of the area used for agriculture, and are home to about 50 percent of the population, including many poor. Involving complex interactions among many factors, vulnerability in drylands is rising, jeopardizing the livelihood for of millions.

A decade ago in Mozambique, a stakeholder workshop where the need to improve access to industrial and commercial land as a means to encourage investment was a topic of discussion, a government official came up to. In order to create new jobs, generate more income, and modernize the economy, many countries see an urgent need to encourage industrial and commercial investment, both domestic and foreign. However, investment in many sectors cannot take place unless land, along with other basic factors of production, is available.

Economic, agronomic, and biophysical drivers affect global land use, so all three influences need to be considered in evaluating economically optimal allocations of the world’s land resources. A dynamic, forward-looking optimization framework applied over the course of the coming century shows that although some deforestation is optimal in the near term, in the absence of climate change regulation, the desirability of further deforestation is eliminated by mid-century.