The general model has been to continuously innovate, reduce farm gate prices and externalize costs. This model drove the phenomenal achievements of AKST in industrial countries after WWII and the spread of the Green Revolution beginning in the 1960s. But, given the new challenges we confront today, there is increasing recognition within formal S&T organizations that the current AKST model requires revision.

The elimination or the substantial reduction of subsidies and protectionism in industrialized countries, especially for commodities in which developing countries compete such as sugar, groundnuts and cotton is important for small-scale farm sectors around the world. Similarly, plurilateral commitments from major exporting countries to ensure that there is no trade at prices below the full cost of production have been put forward as an option to d...

Ensuring policy space for all these countries to maintain prices for crops that are important to food security and rural livelihoods is essential. Agricultural policies in industrialized countries, including export subsidies, have reduced commodity prices and thus food import costs; however this has undermined the development of the agricultural sector in developing countries, and thus agriculture’s significant potential growth multiplier for the...

About 54% of a total of 44,019,400 ha of land is used for agriculture in the Caucasus. Most agricultural land is located in the plains, the Kuban-Azov plain, the Stavropol plateau, the Kura-Araks lowland and the Ararat valley while there is a shortage of farm land in mountain regions. The main crops of the Caucasus area are cereals, fodder, fruit, tea and tobacco.

In 1970s and 1980s - years of environmental crisis, there were few trees remaining in Niger. Wind-blown sands razed farmers' young crops and they often had to plant crops three times to succeed. Since the middle of the 1980s in the most densely populated parts of Niger farmers have begun to protect and manage young trees and bushes regenerating on their cultivated fields. This is natural farmer-managed forest regeneration. Some trees fix nitrogen...