Information communication technology (ICT) has changed the traditional agricultural extension service mode worldwide. This paper examines the effects of the Rural Distance Education Project (RDEP) on the household income, agricultural productivity, and off-farm employment of farmers in peri-urban areas in Beijing. Using the survey data of 783 randomly selected farm households from 54 villages in three Beijing peri-urban districts in 2014, and the propensity score matching method (PSM), we find that the RDEP has a significant and positive effect on agricultural productivity and input use.

Outsourcing, as a productive service, has been widely adopted in industrial production and international trade but less applied in agricultural management. With the advancement of agricultural labor division and specialization, outsourcing is becoming one of the most sustained trends in concurrent business.

The lack of land ownership databases in developing countries has influenced inhabitants of these countries to occupy public lands. This situation has resulted in areas of informal housing, commerce, and agriculture, ultimately creating new informal settlements, which are becoming a serious problem in developing countries. These informal settlements contain inhabitants settled on public land without any infrastructure and against the landowner’s wishes.

Population and land use outmigrations from urban to peripheral areas can result in nonfunctional unmaintained historic structures which deteriorate to the point where removal is cheaper than removal or demolition by neglect The increasing rate of neglected historic structures is a growing concern There is a need for research investigating connections between urban growth management and its effect on neglect This paper applies Newmans 2013 conceptual model of measuring neglect to Geographic Information Systems comparing rates of neglect in historic Doylestown Quakertown and Bristol boroughs

This review offers a perspective on the role landscape and gardening play in urban settings from a sociocultural and ecological dimension The practice of cultivating in gardens parks and vacant lots creates community spaces and are increasingly becoming important to peoples experience of social and cultural wellbeing In recent times this has become a major focus of research in ecology agriculture urban design landscape architecture human geography and sociology Community gardening is one of the avenues toward revitalizing urban environments and it provides a way of addressing multifaceted u

Currently there exists a disturbing urban problem exemplified by the excessive luxury apartments and glamorous office towers being built in cities around the world in the face of the increasing unaffordability of housing and lowcost work trade or craft space Seeking to address this complex problem this paper proposes a theoretical framework that uniquely addresses both the capitalist economic structure that drives the development process and the Marxistbased urban theory by which the socioeconomic outcomes are currently evaluated This framework takes as its metatheory the approach of Thomas

Over the last two decades, 200 million people across the world have been lifted out of hunger. But as climate change brings more frequent and severe weather shocks such as droughts and floods, and makes rainfall patterns less predictable, these gains are under threat, especially among Africa’s smallholder farmers. Agriculture is Africa’s biggest employer. But mean temperatures are expected to rise faster in the continent than the global average, decreasing crop yields and deepening poverty.

Health-related incentives to reward effort or commitment are commonplace in many professional contracts throughout the world. Typically absent from small-scale agriculture in poor countries, such incentives may help overcome both health issues for remote rural families and supply issues for firms. Using a randomized control design, we investigate the impact of adding a micronutrient-fortified product in contracts between a Senegalese dairy processing factory and its seminomadic milk suppliers.

Stunting affects 160 million pre-school children around the world, and imposes significant costs on a child’s health, cognitive development, schooling and economic performance. Stunting in early childhood has been linked to poor dietary diversity, notably low intake of animal-sourced foods (ASFs) rich in high quality protein and other growth-stimulating nutrients. Surprisingly, however, very little economic research has focused on ASFs and child growth. In this paper we redress this omission through an analysis of 112,553 children aged 6-23 months from 46 countries.

The results of this study reveal that the full inclusion of crop production in the forest landscape restoration approach could produce largescale,
worldwide benefits for food security and therefore facilitate a wide uptake of restoration practices and the implementation of large
restoration projects. The positive impacts are multifaceted and significant in size: a reduction in malnourished children ranging from three
to six million; a reduced number of people at risk of hunger, estimated to be between 70 and 151 million; reduced pressure for expansion

WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: This thematic study presents a country-level overview of customary tenure arrangements in Lao PDR. It examines the extent of customary tenure and land formalization in the country, key policy changes that have impacted on customary arrangements, the degree to which customary land is recognized legally and in practice, and explores opportunities for better recognition. Customary tenure covers a wide range of land types and resources, and provides livelihood security for a majority of the Lao rural population, particularly ethnic minorities and women.