Research Document

Le changement climatique a le potentiel d’exacerber les conflits, de provoquer des crises humanitaires, de déplacer des populations, de détruire des moyens de subsistance et de faire reculer le développement et la lutte contre la pauvreté au détriment de millions d’êtres humains à travers la planète.

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GESTION DURABLE DES ZONES HUMIDES FACE AUX RISQUES CLIMATIQUES AU NIGER - LE CAS DE LA MARE DE TABALAK.pdf

Volatility in agriculture is expected to increase – production volatility, mostly driven by climate change as well as price volatility, due to higher production volatility, a tight supply/demand balance, volatile energy prices, and other factors. The responsibility to manage risks is increasingly in farmers’ hands. The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy is undergoing major reform towards greater market orientation. Tighter budgets as well as environmental and trade consider- ations have led to the reduction of market interventions.

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Risk management in agriculture Towards market solutions in the EU.pdf

Aflatoxins, metabolites of the fungus Aspergillus flavus, are potent liver toxins and carcinogens in animals, and may also be human carcinogens. Although aflatoxin contamination in corn is uncommon in Kentucky, occasional incidents do occur and can create significant economic losses for individual producers. Of all the known mycotoxins (toxic substances produced by fungi), aflatoxins in corn and other commodities (milk, peanuts, or cottonmeal, for example) probably generate the most concern when they occur at high levels in marketing channels.

After two consecutive seasons of inadequate rainfall since 2010, the impacts of drought have dominated the humanitarian scene across the Horn of Africa (HoA) from mid-2011. The terms such as risk reduction, vulnerability reduction and resilience building are increasingly becoming the new 'hot topic' being highlighted at various drought fora and included in numerous drought-focused project documents.

DFID’s research strategy 2008-2013 includes elements that focus on finding ways to utilise new technologies for poverty alleviation. The use of new technology in alleviating poverty will only be achieved if people are convinced of its value and if it is easily accessible, easy to use and affordable. The aim of this project is to identify factors inhibiting or constraining the adoption of new technologies and to identify mechanisms of overcoming these constraints.

This discussion paper will cover the important role of ICT in the provision of extension and advisory services (EAS). EAS have been defined as “the dissemination of expert agriculture knowledge and practices” (Toyama, 2011). The communication from extension and advisory services is complex because it comes from many sources -- government, universities, NGOs, private sector companies -- and it involves not just information but hands-on communication. Many of the farmers who need to be served in developing countries are illiterate.

By 2050, the world’s population is likely to reach 9 billion. Most of these people are expected to live in developing countries and have higher incomes than currently is the case, which will result in increased demand for food. In the best of circumstances, the challenge of meeting this demand in a sustainable manner will be enormous. When one takes into account the effects of climate change (higher temperatures, shifting seasons, more frequent and extreme weather events, flooding, and drought) on food production, that challenge grows even more daunting.

The Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) has commissioned the Natural Resources Institute to develop a toolkit for the evaluation of extension (projects, programmes, tools and initiatives). This commission has a number of components:

Despite the fact that coffee rust was first investigated scientifically more than a century ago, and that the disease is one of the major constraints to coffee production - constantly changing the socio-economic and historical landscape of the crop - critical aspects of the life cycle of the pathogen, Hemileia vastatrix, remain unclear. The asexual urediniospores are regarded as the only functional propagule: theoretically, making H. vastatrix a clonal species.

Drought is a natural phenomenon caused by precipitation deficit over a certain period of time over a certain region. It can be observed worldwide affecting broad regions and causing significant damages to human lives as well as economic losses. Drought cannot be prevented but much can be done to reduce the impacts through preparedness and mitigation. Rainfall over the Vietnamese central highlands is mainly generated by the south Asian summer monsoon. Disturbances, however, appear as a result of large-scale circulation phenomena.