With a surface area of 1,267,000 square kilometres, Niger is a vast Sahelian country located in the south of the Sahara Desert, which covers over two thirds of its land. In 2015, it had an estimated population of 17 million inhabitants and a particularly high growth rate of 3.3 per cent. It is...

At the present moment in history, humanity is faced with several major challenges, one of them being that of feeding an increasingly populous and urbanised planet. The challenge is even greater as it becomes clearer that it is not just a matter of producing enough fibres and primary products...

The starting point for this study was the consideration of future climate change scenarios and their uncertainties. The paper presents the global projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) and compares them with regional scenarios...

The persistent agrarian crisis facing sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the recent food price hikes have provoked greater urgency among governments, civil society actors and development agencies to identify public policies that can accelerate agricultural transformation towards achieving food...

The United Nations International Year of Family Farming 2014 came at an important time for the region of the Near East and North Africa (NENA). This is because the political turmoil and uprisings that have structured politics and social policy in the region since 2010 (and as we will also see,...

Historically, family farms held positions of respect and high esteem in the dominant cultures of North America and in much of the rest of the world. The first family farmers in North America were the indigenous peoples who had lived on the continent for centuries before the arrival of Europeans....

Most people have a clear understanding of what the term 'family farm' means. This is especially true in Europe. The term refers, in a seemingly straightforward and unambiguous way, to well-known and self-evident realities. It is solidly internalised in the memory of most people, even those with...

One of the principal challenges in sustainable development, especially in developing countries, is to build institutions that generate positive environmental and social externalities by helping individuals to perceive a positive relationship between self-interest and "the common good"....