The paper documents how the implementation of the land tenure policy of the Vietnamese government has affected the agricultural system, livelihood strategies and food self-sufficiency of Thai farmers in a remote upland village, Que, in Nghe An Province, North Central Vietnam. It is shown that the enforcement of restrictions on the area under swidden agriculture has resulted in a strong reduction of swidden agriculture production and shortened fallow periods, not compensated for by the slow increase in paddy rice production.

Olive groves are representative of the landscape and culture of Spain. They occupy 2.5 M ha (1.5 M ha in Andalusia) and are characterised by their multifunctionality. In recent years, socio-economic and environmental factors (i.e., erosion) have compromised their sustainability, leading farmers to abandon their farms or intensify their management. The main objective/purpose of this research was to study the drivers and concerns that condition farmers’ choice of a given olive grove management model.

Les inégalités foncières sont en pleine croissance dans la plupart des pays. Pire encore, les nouvelles mesures et analyses publiées dans le présent rapport de synthèse montrent qu’elles sont sensiblement plus élevées qu’annoncé précédemment. Cette tendance représente une menace directe pour les moyens de subsistance d’environ 2,5 milliards de personnes travaillant dans l’agriculture de petite échelle partout dans le monde.

Le sommaire 

Dossier 

- Agir pour l’accès à la terre en Europe
- Chroniques fermières en Champagne et en Côte d'Or
- Rencontre avec la coopérative paysanne de Belêtre
- Agir ensemble pour une loi foncière
- Douce France, un film qui fait bouger nos territoires
- Portraits de bénévoles
- Comprendre la retraite des agriculteurs

Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) have recently been introduced as key element in the greening of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. In 2015, farmers across the EU have implemented EFAs for the first time. Data for German federal states indicate a strong variance in EFA decisions with an overall dominance of catch crops, nitrogen fixing crops and fallow land – two of which bear limited benefits for biodiversity conservation. This article explores how experts explain EFA choices.

Smallholder farmers in the mid-hills of Nepal are facing an acute labor shortage due to out-migration which, in general, has affected the capacity to achieve timely crop establishment, harvest, and inter-cultural operations. These effects are more visible in the case of labor-intensive crops such as rice and promoting higher levels of rural mechanization has emerged as the primary policy response option. Nevertheless, quantitative evidence for the ability of mechanization to offset the adverse effects of shortages increasing labor prices in these systems is largely absent.

The growing awareness of the negative impact of agriculture on the natural environment creates social expectation towards the reduction of this impact through the pro-environmental activities of farmers. Agri-environmental programmes are one of the key instruments of EU agricultural policy aimed at encouraging farmers to do so. Due to their voluntary nature and involvement of farmers in these activities, there has been a scientific discussion for a long time on the factors determining the participation of farmers in these programmes.

Using a qualitative social research method at the local administrative level, this paper provides insight into the policy process in China and farmers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of policies implemented to deal with drought. Two villages in rural South-West Yunnan were purposefully selected for the study. The research started with the general assumption that China has a strong top-down hierarchal approach to policy processes and that funding dispersal is prioritised by the central government.

The move towards sustainable agriculture requires a more detailed understanding of farmers’ knowledge(s) and knowledge practices. Increasingly, it is important to understand not only what farmers understand, but how their knowledge practices incorporate others – especially given the emerging call for environmentally-orientated policy measures to move beyond an individual farmer focus. This paper considers how farmers engage with, utilise and share knowledge through a focus on the Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) initiative in the UK.

The number of young farmers has decreased over recent decades in several developed countries such as the United States and European countries. A recent strategy adopted by the European Union to address the resulting age imbalance is the Young Farmer Payment which provides an additional payment on top of the average basic payment introduced in the last Common Agricultural Policy reform. The objective of this study is to determine, by means of a behavioural approach, how this payment influenced the incentives of young farmers to stay in the farm.

Smallholder producers in sub-Saharan Africa are often unable integrate into markets and access high-value opportunities by effectively participating in global chains for high-value fresh produce. Using data from a survey of large avocado farmers in Kenya, this study examines the determinants and impacts of smallholder-producer participation in avocado export markets on labor inputs, farm yields, sales prices, and incomes, using a switching regression framework to control for selection effects.

Climate change increases the vulnerability of agricultural sector due to the increasing threat from pest attacks. Mitigation of a threat that results from climate change requires adaptation strategies. This study investigates farmers’ willingness to participate in the process of climate change adaptation in Yogyakarta, Indonesia; particularly in facing the increasing risk of pest attacks. Using a logistic regression model, we tested the impacts of social capital on farmers’ willingness to participate.