Blog for People, Food and Nature

From the trees of the tropics, the Landscapes Blog has headed to higher latitudes of the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agroforestry Center (USDA NAC) recently issued a practical guide on agroforestry for landowners, farmers, and ranchers. Its primary goal is to “assist farmers and woodland owners establish, manage and market agroforestry proj ...

Yesterday the Landscapes Blog explored how cocoa production in Ghana is shifting toward a more sustainable system. Expanding to other tropical tree crops, today marks the launch of a new book – Tropical Tree Fruit Species and Climate Change. Trees are an important component in integrated agricultural landscapes, contributing to wildlife habitat, shade provision, soil fer ...

Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) drew attention to the exciting new discovery that researchers from the International Institution for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) made regarding intercropping.  The recently posted article, In Uganda, Coffee and Banana Go Better Together, focuses on Uganda’s two most important agricultural commodities: coffee and bananas.  ...

By Sophia Gnych (sophia.gnych@zsl.org) Biodiversity and Palm Oil Project Developer The Zoological Society of London Bogor, Indonesia The growth of large multinational retailers, manufacturers and commercial agriculture firms has dramatically changed the production and distribution of agricultural commodities internati ...

Watershed Connect, a project of Forest Trends, posted an article discussing watershed payment programs and addressing the long term question that has plagued practitioners and environmental policy makers for years: what is the best way to scale up watershed payment program projects?  This issue was a major point discussed by various policy makers, practitioners and […] ...

While the Landscapes Blog has touched on many of the sustainable agriculture related events that occurred in Rio de Janeiro last month, it’s yet to highlight the day of events focused on one of the most important elements for agriculture: water. UN-Water is the United Nations inter-agency coordination mechanism for all fresh-water related issues. On […] ...

The Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR) is promoting a new Crop System Intensification agenda. The agenda demonstrates the significance of promoting sustainable agricultural practices and protecting resources through a community and farmer based approach.  WOTR recognizes that managing food security and sustaining livelihoods while protecting natural resources is not possible ...

Instituting landholder protections is critical in order to generate growth and security for the African people.  Two presenters emphasized this point during an event on the emerging land issues in Africa hosted by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).  While Professor Thomas Jayne and Karen Boudreaux focused on different aspects of the African agricultural [&he ...

Rio+20 has passed, but that doesn’t mean that agriculture and sustainable development are off the table. We are continuing to showcase some of the work in prep for Rio+20, relevant to landscapes for people, food and nature. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) released a policy brief this month highlighting the increasing need to […] ...

In coordination with the Rio+20 conference that took place in Brazil last week, Fairfood International, a professional non-profit organization striving to be  a catalyst for change towards a sustainable and a fair food system, just released a set of documents titled “The Food Future We Want”.  The documents follows the structure of  “The Future We […] ...