Rainfed agriculture is practised on 80% of the world’s agricultural area and generates 60–70% of the world’s staple food1 (FAOSTAT, 2005). In semi-arid and dry subhumid zones, rainfed agriculture dominates food production systems, and water is a key limiting factor to crop growth (SEI, 2005). Since approximately 70% of the world’s poor are women, the importance of rainfed sources of food weighs...

The role of urban agriculture in global food security is a topic of increasing discussion. Existing research on urban and peri-urban agriculture consists largely of case studies that frequently use disparate definitions of urban and peri-urban agriculture depending on the local context and study objectives. This lack of consistency makes quantification of the extent of this practice at the glob...

EPTD Discussion Papers contain preliminary material and research results, and are circulated prior to a full peer review in order to stimulate discussion and critical comment. It is expected that most Discussion Papers will eventually be published in some other form, and that their content may also be revised. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to thank Susanne Neubert and John Pender for h...

Temporal NDVI signatures of the following land cover types in the Aral Sea Basin (ASB) were analyzed in MODIS data 2000–2012: Wetlands, bare land, water surfaces, natural vegetation and rainfed agriculture (in mountainous regions), low vegetation, rice cropping systems. Only the last class refers to cropland. All other classes were targeted to separate non-cropland or rainfed agriculture from t...

1. Agriculture is the predominant user (75-80%) of the available freshwater resource in many parts of the world. At present most of the water used to grow crops is derived from rainfed soil moisture, with non-irrigated agriculture accounting for some 60% of production in developing countries. Although irrigation provides only 10% of agricultural water use and covers just around 20% of the cropl...

With a growing world population and a trend towards more resource-intensive diets, pressure on land and water resources for food production will continue to increase in the coming decades. Large parts of the world rely on rainfed agriculture for their food security. In Africa, 90 % of the food production is from rainfed agriculture, generally with low yields and a high risk of crop failure. One...

Sustaining and enhancing agriculture productivity has been recognized as one of the key pathways of reducing and eliminating hunger, poverty and malnutrition. Agricultural sector is regarded as the key component of the economies of many developing nations, including India. Globally, agriculture accounts for a large share of GDP, it employs a significant proportion of the labour force, represent...

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Rainfed agriculture occupies 68% of India’s cultivated area and supports 40% of the human and 60% of the livestock population. It produces 445 of the food requirement, thus has and will continue to play a critical role in India’s food security. However, aberrant behaviour of monsoon rainfall, eroded and degraded soils with multiple nutrient and water deficiencies, declining ground water table a...

Climate variability can induce uncertainty in yields, and threaten long term economic viability of rainfed agricultural enterprises in the absence of effective adaptation strategies. Enterprise mix diversification has been found to be an effective adaptation strategy for mitigating multiple sources of farm business risk in some contexts. The extent to which enterprise mix diversification can mi...