Livestock and global change: Special feature in PNAS

In its issue of Dcember 24, 2013, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) present a special feature on Livestock and Global Change.

It is a collection of articles that deal with different issues related to the global livestock system, including

• Livestock and global change: Emerging issues for sustainable food systems
• Current drivers and future directions of global livestock disease dynamics
• Exploring global changes in nitrogen and phosphorus cycles in agriculture induced by livestock production over the 1900–2050 period
• Biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions from global livestock systems
• Global climate policy impacts on livestock, land use, livelihoods, and food security
• Assessing the impacts of livestock production on biodiversity in rangeland ecosystems

Interesting reading for all those who are interested in the evolution of the global food system, livestock production, and food security.

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Tropentag 2013 “Agricultural development within the rural-urban continuum” starts today

Today starts the Tropentag 2013 conference “Agricultural development within the rural-urban continuum”.

Througout the conference there will be a conference blog and continous reporting will come via @tropentag on Twitter.

Modernization of Staple Food Value Chains Ensuring a Food-Secure Asia | Food Security Portal

Modernization of Staple Food Value Chains Ensuring a Food-Secure Asia:

The Quiet Revolution in Staple Food Value Chains: Enter the Dragon, the Elephant, and the Tiger, a new book by ADB and IFPRI, examines domestic rice and potato value chains in Bangladesh, China, and India since the 2007-2008 food price crisis.

 

Rural-urban migrants and their contribution to rural development

Rural-urban migration has the potential to unfold a range of positive impacts on the development of the migrants’ home communities and the rural economy as a whole. Dealing with the case of China, I am exploring this issue in a paper titled “Rural-urban migration in China: An analytical framework of migrants’ contributions to rural development” which just got published in the latest edition of the Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences.

The paper relies on a review of literature from the fields of sociology, geography and economics to construct an analytical framework of positive contributions of China’s internal migrants on the development of source communities, of the migration process itself and of the institutional, administrative and social contexts of migration. It highlights interactions between these contexts on the one hand and the migration process and the associated contributions of migrants on the other hand. The framework provides a guideline for approaching similar problems elsewhere and offers support in the identification and assessment of possible policy interventions.

An earlier version of the paper was presented at the WorldBank‘s International Conference on Diaspora for Development which took place in Washington D.C. from July 13-14, 2009.