This article is centred on the volatility of commodity prices. It presents the instruments offering a protection against volatility and shows how they can be employed. The first section exposes these derivative instruments. It distinguishes them in step with the need they respond and the way...

Twenty years after Independence, the land question is still an urgent unresolved issue in Zimbabwe. The government launched the land reform after 1980 and led an active policy in favour of the rural areas. But the land reform programme slowed down considerably in the second half of the eighties,...

Agricultural expansion is the main deforestation driver, while forest degradation is due to non-sustainable poaching and harvesting of forest products. Policies to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) thus focus on agricultural expansion and illegal harvesting. The...

We investigate the dynamic effect that the Tandroy's unsustainable practices have on the forest. The Tandroy people live in Androy, a region located in the southern part of Madagascar. They are mainly an agricultural and cattle herding society whose subsistence relies on the slash-and-burn...

Sustainable development requires a mix of policies that can simultaneously address social, economic and environmental objectives. While the preceding chapters of this book have focused on agricultural, environmental and socio-economic aspects and related policies, this chapter looks at the...

In Vietnam, a quasi-private property regime has been established in 1993, with the issuance exchangeable and mortgageable land use right certificates. Using primary qualitative and quantitative data, this paper investigates the role of the titling policy in fostering the use of soil conservation...

This chapter briefly summarizes the causes and consequences of soil erosion, before presenting examples of effective soil conservation technologies (SCT), such as contour-based cropping, cover crops, mulching and geo-textiles, and based on case studies from northern Thailand and northern...

Les travailleurs indépendants échappent à la plupart des études sur la stratification sociale. L'étude de leur patrimoine est une voie possible pour progresser dans la connaissance de leur position sociale. En effet, la plupart des indépendants exploitent eux-mêmes un patrimoine...

China faces significant challenges in reconciling food security goals with the objective of becoming a low-carbon economy. Agriculture accounts for approximately 11 % of China’s national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with cereal production representing a large proportion (about 32 %) of...