I had the privilege of representing the Land Portal Foundation at the FAO Expert consultation on “Knowledge sharing for agricultural innovations applicable for smallholders and family farmers in Europe and Central Asia”, which took place in Gödöllő (Hungary) from the 10-13 September 2018.
The 62nd Commission on the Status of Women (CSW62), held in March 2018, focused on the empowerment of women and girls in rural areas, signifying international commitment to fight some of the biggest challenges of our time: poverty, inequality, multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and an end to violence against women and girls, no matter where they live, or how they live, so that we leave no one behind.
By focusing on four critical aspects of land rights, businesses can not only manage risks, but also do a great deal of global good while strengthening their bottom lines.
Working on and with open data means that we are avid believers in the notion that pathways of information should be opened up, that we are building the proper technological infrastructures for information to be appropriately shared, thereby creating connections. Networks such as the International Land Coalition serve this very same purpose; with the exchange of information and knowledge being one of the Coalition’s main missions.
The world would be a pretty dull and hungry place if it weren’t for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
Indigenous Peoples and local communities play a central role in feeding the world. They look after much of the world’s biodiversity, with at least 80% of planet’s biodiversity found in Indigenous territories and waters. And they have an incredible track record of protecting the climate by preventing deforestation and properly managing pasturelands.
The debate on agriculture and development is heated and, apparently, never ending. This is especially true of the role and position of peasant (or smallholder) agriculture, with people either vigorously defending the sector or saying that in time it will (and should) disappear. Prof. Olivier de Schutter is a clear exponent of the former line of thought, as is evident from his contribution ‘We want peasants’ on Land Portal (26 September, 2018).
This week in Geneva, the Human Rights Council is expected to take a position on the follow-up to a draft Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Persons Working in Rural Areas. Five years after the start of the negotiations, we are at a turning point.
Plantation workers in southern India are the unlikely subjects of a Tamil language film whose director said he wanted to draw attention to their struggles, which remain largely unchanged despite the country's fast economic growth.
"Merku Thodarchi Malai" (The Western Ghats), shows the daily lives of workers on cardamom estates in the hills on the frontiers of Tamil Nadu and Kerala states, and explores themes of landlessness, migration, caste and human-animal conflict.
Absent from the discourse spurred by the motion passed in the National Assembly on 27 February is what could be achieved in the interim for land reform programme using existing legislation while the country awaits a verdict on the constitutional amendment to determine whether is possible to expropriate land w
Organized by the Mekong Regional Land Governance (MRLG) project and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the Second Regional Land Forum will take place in Bangkok, Thailand from the 28-30 May.
Much of the world’s rural landscapes are technically managed by national governments with limited recognition of, or support for, the rights and management responsibilities of the rural poor who live in these areas. In an era of large-scale land acquisitions for global commodity production, this has led, in some cases, to governments allocating vast tracts of land and resources to companies with limited or no consultation of the people affected.