ABSTRACTED FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This report highlights important dimensions of food security in rural Lao PDR, including: the different gender roles in agriculture; reliance on community-level social cohesion as both a coping mechanism and means of livelihood; and the ongoing challenge of shifting rural livelihoods from a subsistence basis towards market-orientation. The findings of this report give a snapshot of rural livelihoods and practice.

Right to Food Handbooks 3. This handbook presents the process to be followed for the revision of sectoral legislation, since it may affect various aspects of the right to food. The purpose of this revision is to ensure that the legal framework of the country is favourable for the progressive realization of the right to food. The content of this handbook is based on the FAO's “Guide on Legislating for the Right to Food”.

Manuel pratique sur le droit à l’alimentation 3. Ce manuel pratique présente le processus de réalisation d’un examen sectoriel de compatibilité tel un exercice pouvant démontrer l’existence d’un contexte juridique favorable à la concrétisation progressive du droit à l’alimentation. Le contenu de ce manuel est basé sur le « Guide pour légiférer sur le droit à l’alimentation » de la FAO.

Poplars and willows provide society with ecosystem services. These include direct economic benefits such as wood, fibre, fuelwood and other forest products. They also include environmental benefits improving the lives of people, such as through rehabilitation of degraded land, restoration of forest landscapes and mitigation of climate change. All of these services support rural livelihoods, enhance food security, alleviate poverty and contribute to sustainable land use and rural development, particularly in developing countries.

The paper uses three years of household farm plot panel data (2006-2009), covering six districts in central and southern Malawi to assess factor productivity and farming system development under the input subsidy program. All farm plots of the households were measured with GPS. Maize production intensified in this period as maize area shares of the total farm size were reduced while input use intensity and yields increased. Yields of improved maize were significantly (+323 kg/ha) higher than for local maize.

Use of inorganic fertilizers could be fundamental in addressing low and declining soil fertility while improving food security in sub-Sahara Africa. Determination of key factors responsible for use of inorganic fertilizers in the central highlands of Ethiopia is increasingly important as continued land redistribution in already degraded and land-scarce highlands undermines sustainable farming and increases nutrient mining.

This chapter uses both classic and contemporary literature to trace how land policies, and particularly land reform, have gained, lost, and regained prominence in development strategies and debates since the Second World War. It introduces contemporary issues and debates on gender and generational issues in land policy and land grabbing involving sometimes spectacularly large corporate land deals, and concluding with reflections on new ideas of food and land sovereignty that drive today’s agrarian movements.

This technical guide on Governing land for women and men aims to assist implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (FAO, 2012b) by providing guidance that supports the Guidelines’ principle of gender equality in tenure governance. At the beginning of each module, reference is made to the relevant provisions in the Guidelines.

Decisions about resource tenure – or who can use what resources of the land for how long, and under what conditions – are among the most critical for forests and livelihoods in many contexts.