Global food demand is increasing rapidly, as are the environmental impacts of agricultural expansion. Here, we project global demand for crop production in 2050 and evaluate the environmental impacts of alternative ways that this demand might be met. We find that per capita demand for crops, when measured as caloric or protein content of all crops combined, has been a similarly increasing function of per capita real income since 1960. This relationship forecasts a 100–110% increase in global crop demand from 2005 to 2050.

Background: Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has embarked on a new era of dam building to improve food security and promote economic development. Nonetheless, the future impacts of dams on malaria transmission are poorly understood and seldom investigated in the context of climate and demographic change.

A large number of governance interventions are being developed in order to reduce deforestation and enhance the sustainability of commodity

supply chains across the tropics. The extent to which individual agricultural commodity supply chain interventions can achieve scale, and

environmental or social objectives, depends in part on the ways in which those interventions interact with other interventions. We use a casestudy

of the new Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) cattle certification program in Brazil to explore the different ways in which governance

Restoration interventions to combat land degradation are carried out in arid and semi-arid areas to improve vegetation cover and land productivity. Evaluating the success of an intervention over time is challenging due to various constraints (e.g. difficult-to-access areas, lack of long-term records) and the lack of standardised and affordable methodologies. We propose a semi-automatic methodology that uses remote sensing data to provide a rapid, standardised and objective assessment of the biophysical impact, in terms of vegetation cover, of restoration interventions.

Adapting to climate risks is central to the goal of increasing food security and enhancing resilience of farming systems in East Africa. We examined farmers’ attitudes and assessed determinants of adaptation using data from a random sample of 500 households in Borana, Ethiopia, Nyando, Kenya, Hoima Uganda, and Lushoto, Tanzania. Adaptation was measured using a livelihood-based index that assigned weights to different individual strategies based on their marginal contributions to a household’s livelihood.

The impact of agricultural practices on CO2 emissions from soils needs to be understood and quantified to enhance ecosystem functions, especially the ability of soils to sequester atmospheric carbon (C), while enhancing food and biomass production. The objective of this study was to assess CO2 emissions in the soil surface following tillage abandonment and to investigate some of the underlying soil physical, chemical and biological controls.

Reliance on rainfall for agriculture and increased climate change and variability pose growing production risks in developing countries. Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa is dominated by smallholder farmers who depend mainly on rain-fed agriculture, putting food security at both household and national levels at risk, especially in the event of drought. Investment in smallholder irrigation becomes a priority in developing countries if food security and national development goals are to be met, as their economies are agro-based.

Modern agricultural systems that promote cultivation of a very limited number of crop species have relegated indigenous crops to the status of neglected and underutilised crop species (NUCS). The complex interactions of water scarcity associated with climate change and variability in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and population pressure require innovative strategies to address food insecurity and undernourishment. Current research efforts have identified NUCS as having potential to reduce food and nutrition insecurity, particularly for resource poor households in SSA.