Access to Food, Dry Season Strategies and Household Size amongst the Bambara of Central Mali

The Bambara village of Kala lies on the northern frontier for regular crop production in Mali (see Map). With a long term mean rainfall of 600 mm per year, this region forms part of the southern Sahelian zone. Rainfall is concentrated in the three months from July to September and intensive work in the fields must be done during this short period to ensure a harvest. Rainfall is highly variable in its distribution within the year, between neighbouring villages in a given year and from one year to the next. Expected rainfall levels have been falling over the last 20 years; levels ranged from 350-450 mm per year over the period 1980-83 before falling to the exceptionally low total of 250 mm in the drought year of 1984.European Research Council (ERC

LLand Grab, Climate Change and Human Rights

Presentation by Camilla Toulmin (Director, IIED) at seminar organised by Dr Jeremie Gilbert, Centre for Human Rights in Conflict

Evolving land rights, policy and tenure in Africa

Evolving land rights, policy and tenure in Africa presents and discusses several key aspects of Africa's ongoing land policy debate including legislative reform, the management of land rights, issues of implementation, and policy-making processes. It provides readers with examples of how different countries have approached the highly political and sensitive subject of rights to land and other natural resources. Recent innovative land reform programmes are described, and the authors assess the progress made towards more equitable land policies and highlight the challenges for the future. The book draws much of its material from a workshop on Land Rights and Sustainable Development in sub-Saharan Africa held in February 1999, sponsored by UK's Department for International Development (DFID). IT will be of interest to those in government with responsibility for land matters, development practitioners, donors, scholars, and students. We hope that its readership will span both South and North, and above all, find an interested public in Africa where wider participation in debates about land will help to ensure progressive, workable and acceptable land policies

Peri-urban land grabbing?:dilemmas of formalising tenure and land acquisitions around the cities of Bamako and Ségou, Mali

This brief note identifies the consequences of land acquisitions in peri-urban spaces around the cities of Bamako and Ségou, Mali. This contributes to debates surrounding the rapid expansion of African cities faced with rapid rural-urban migration and new arrivals settling in precarious conditions. West Africa has a long history of urbanisation, in some cases accompanied by highly productive and intensified land use. It is, therefore, vitally important to question whether formal property rights within peri-urban spaces are a viable option to secure rights for those most marginal and/or recently disposed of their rural land holdings. What are some alternative formalisation mechanisms, which avoid the hazards associated with formal titling, and address the precarious tenure conditions in peri-urban zones

Soil fertility management and sustainable livelihoods: New approaches to the policy process (Part 1: Country reports)

This report presents the outputs from the first phase of a study commissioned as a resultof the UK Department for International Development's (DFID) interest in contributing to policy debate on soil fertility management in Sub Saharan Africa. This work originally envisaged consideration of appropriate engagement with global initiatives, specifically the Soil Fertility Initiative (SFI) for Sub Saharan Africa, launched in 1996 by the World Bank. Subsequent to the work being commissioned it became apparent that the SFI was in a state of evolution and while discussions were held with various organisations it is considered that it is no longer appropriate to include these within this report. The primary focus of the study has been on lower levels in the policy process within seven countries representing a range of ecological, economic and political conditions. This focus on specific countries recognises that while global initiatives have a contribution in terms of raising the profile of soil fertility as an issue that should concern governments and development agencies, solutions and options for addressing soil fertility in the context of poor people's livelihoods require a more location specific approach. A major challenge explored by the country studies is how best to foster a process whereby policy and thinking at higher levels is informed by and responsive to more local level knowledge, interests and capacity

The future of the global food system

Although food prices in major world markets are at or near a historical low, there is increasing concern about food security—the ability of the world to provide healthy and environmentally sustainable diets for all its peoples. This article is an introduction to a collection of reviews whose authors were asked to explore the major drivers affecting the food system between now and 2050. A first set of papers explores the main factors affecting the demand for food (population growth, changes in consumption patterns, the effects on the food system of urbanization and the importance of understanding income distributions) with a second examining trends in future food supply (crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, and ‘wild food’). A third set explores exogenous factors affecting the food system (climate change, competition for water, energy and land, and how agriculture depends on and provides ecosystem services), while the final set explores cross-cutting themes (food system economics, food wastage and links with health). Two of the clearest conclusions that emerge from the collected papers are that major advances in sustainable food production and availability can be achieved with the concerted application of current technologies (given sufficient political will), and the importance of investing in research sooner rather than later to enable the food system to cope with both known and unknown challenges in the coming decades

Living with Uncertainty

The last few years have seen a major rethinking of some of the hallowed assumptions of range ecology and range management practice. This book examines the management of policy implications of this new ecological thinking for pastoral development in dryland areas. With examples drawn from all over Africa, the contributors examine the consequences of living with uncertainty for pastoral development planning, range and fodder management, drought responses, livestock marketing, resource tenure, institutional development and pastoral administration