Asia

This article, published in Global Food Security journal, illustrates an approach to examine trade-offs and synergies among the multiple objectives on sustainable agriculure for monsoon cereal crops in central India. These objectives include efficient use of land to produce nutrients for human consumption, climate resilience, and income for farmers. understanding which crops, or combinations of crops, are most suitable requires identifying household-, community-, and region-specific priorities coupled with empirical analysis that considers multiple objectives. »

This article in the Agricultural Systems journal, describes a spreadsheet-based methodology that generates information about the suitability of climate-smart agriculture based on a region specific production function and ‘target yield’ approach in current and future climate scenarios. The promotion of climate-smart agriculture in different parts of the world requires a clear understanding of its relative suitability, costs and benefits, and the environmental implications of various technological interventions in a local context under current and future climates. Such data is generally difficult to obtain. »

This report by IFAD shows how drylands support important ecosystems and a great variety of biodiversity, as well as their vital role in the livelihoods and cultural identity of many smallholders. It reveals the crucial role the world’s drylands play in buffering the negative impacts of climate change, land degradation and drought. »

This briefing by IIED argues that there is a need to develop value chains to enable organic fertilisers and composts to supply much needed organic matter to depleted soils. Soils are the foundation of all terrestrial life on the planet and are essential for agricultural production. Yet intensive agriculture involving heavy inputs of chemical fertilisers is degrading soils across South Asia and many other parts of the world, threatening food security. »

This article, published in the Global Food Security journal, argues that if small-scale farms continue to dominate in the face of the increasing wage rate in Asia, many countries in this region will lose their comparative advantage in agriculture. If machinery and land are complementary and machines are indivisible to some extent, large-scale mechanized farms become more efficient, which tends to weaken the inverse farm size-productivity relationship. »

This report by OECD and FAO brings together the commodity, policy and country expertise of both organisations and input from collaborating member countries to provide an assessment of medium-term prospects of national, regionaland global agricultural commodity markets. The Outlook provides supply, demand, trade andprice estimates of major agricultural commodities for 41 countries and 12 geographical regions. The special theme chapter of this year’s edition focusses on the prospects and challenges of the agricultural sector in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). »