Middle East

This report provides an overview of a study conducted in the NENA region in 2015-2016 focusing on the features and characteristics of small-scale family farming. Defining policies to support small-scale family farming by fighting poverty in agricultural households cannot be reduced to intensifying farming or stock-breeding practices. »

This article analyses urban land take in cropland areas for the years 2000 and 2040, using a land systems approach. The results show that future urban expansion is primarily expected in areas that are also suitable and available for cropland, thus suggesting a continued competition for land between urban expansion and food production. »

This issue of Farming Matters by ILEIA explores the different ways pastoral societies are joining forces to challenge the policies that undermine their culture and way of life. For millennia, pastoralist societies have managed the rangelands of the world’s most challenging environments, producing food and providing ecosystem services for millions of households. The experiences, opinions and perspectives presented in this issue highlight the importance of pastoral societies for agroecology and the transformation of entire food systems. »

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). »

This report by the Global Network For The Right To Food And Nutrition concludes that transnational corporations are monopolizing control over seeds with dire consequences for human rights and biodiversity. Increasingly, seed and agrochemical businesses seek to privatize, monopolize and control seeds by patenting and commodifying this very source of life. Meanwhile, peasant and indigenous communities, who have been the developers and guardians of seeds for millennia, are finding their rights to save, use, exchange and sell seeds overshadowed by a corporate agenda that prioritizes profit over human rights and the sustainable maintenance of nature. »

This paper by the Global Food Security Journal reviews the literature to identify the relationship between tenure security and food security.The paper explores the conceptual linkages between land tenure reforms, tenure security and food security and illustrates how these vary across diverse contexts. »