Innovator’s handbook: RFS, FAO, INRAE and local innovators partner to build sustainable food systems
10 February 2021
Sustainable Land Management
The United Nations defines Sustainable Land Management as the use of land resources, including soils, water, animals and plants, for the production of goods to meet changing human needs, while simultaneously ensuring the long-term productive potential of these resources and the maintenance of their environmental functions.
Rapid population growth generates increasing demand on agricultural production, resulting in mounting pressure on the soils, forests, rivers, plants, and animals that we depend on for healthy food systems.
In the 12 RFS countries, households living in extreme poverty in rural areas rely on subsistence farming for their food and livelihoods with few alternative options. Smallholder farmers are often caught in low productivity traps whereby unsustainable agriculture and livestock rearing practices deplete and degrade natural resources, which, in turn, compromises ecosystem services and results in pervasive low agricultural yields.
This cycle renders rural smallholder farmers extremely vulnerable to climate change, climate variability, and extreme weather events. Increasing temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns, droughts and flooding directly impact land health by increasing erosion, drying soils, and destroying vegetation cover. This leads to a further decline in agricultural productivity. When paired with rapidly growing populations, these climate impacts often drive an expansion and intensification of agricultural production on already degraded land.
SLM incorporates a wide variety of approaches, including Climate-Smart Agriculture, Conservation Agriculture and agro-ecological approaches, to protect, conserve and rehabilitate natural resources. SLM approaches work to restore ecosystem functioning and promote the sustainable use of natural resources in order to ensure the productive capacity of these resources now and in the future. By improving the health and productive capacity of natural resources within communities, SLM approaches aim to improve agricultural yields, enabling smallholder farmers to achieve food and nutritional security and improve their livelihoods.
In addition to achieving beneficial socio-economic outcomes for communities, SLM practices improve ecosystem functioning and protect biodiversity. SLM interventions focus on improving water availability, improving soil health, and reducing biodiversity loss. These focus areas are particularly significant when it comes to adapting to climate change and reducing vulnerability to extreme weather events. For example, by introducing crop cover and improving the water retention of soil, smallholder farmers can simultaneously improve yields while increasing resilience to increases in temperature, decreases in rainfall, and drought. By reducing deforestation, improving livestock management, and promoting agroforestry approaches, SLM further contributes to global climate change mitigation efforts.
Sustainable Land Management incorporates a wide variety of approaches that work to increase land productivity, improve water availability and water use efficiency, improve soil fertility, prevent and rehabilitate land degradation, improve management of plants and livestock, and improve biodiversity. Within these approaches are common practices and technologies: improvement in plant varieties, minimum soil disturbance, vegetation management, soil erosion control, water harvesting, and agroforestry, amongst others.
RFS country projects teams are facilitating the adoption of a wide range of practices and technologies through interventions that are tailored to the specific country context. For example, in Niger, Malawi, and Tanzania, country project teams are establishing and capacitating community committees to develop and implement local plans for natural resource and rehabilitation management. In Burundi and Uganda, FAO is using the Farmer Field School approach to train farmers in soil and water conservation, establish demonstration plots and conduct field visits to share best practices and develop smallholder capacity in applying successful practices.
Explore the RFS Country Projects to see more examples of how RFS countries are implementing Sustainable Land Management activities.
Stories from the Field
Explore our stories from the field to learn more about how RFS country project teams are implementing activities related to the programmatic theme of Sustainable Land Management.
Relevant resources
We have a growing library of reports, briefs, case studies, media, tools and guidelines. Explore all resources related to Sustainable Land Management to get greater insight into our programme activities.
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Enabling sustainable food systems: Innovators’ handbook
- All Countries
- Sustainable Land Management
- Value Chains & Market Access
- Tools & Guidelines
- Case Study
29 January 2021More infoFAO and the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) have published a new handbook, Enabling Sustainable Food Systems. The handbook draws lessons from a group of innovators from Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe who are leading initiatives to grow, share, sell and consume more sustainable foods in their local communities. The innovations within the handbook are organised into four categories: engaging consumers, producing sustainably, getting products to market and getting organised.
The report was officially launched at the 3rd Global Conference of Sustainable Food Systems held by the One Planet network. The event, which took place on 3 December 2020, was organised by FAO, INRAE, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements and RFS. It featured presentations from around the world that showcased local innovations that have had a big impact on building sustainable food systems.
Ecosystem-based adaptation in the agriculture sector: A nature-based solution for building the resilience of the food and agriculture sector to climate change
- All Countries
- Sustainable Land Management
- Integrated Water Resource Management
- Lessons Learned
- Report
29 October 2020More infoThis new FAO publication highlights the importance of sustainably managed agro-ecosystems and biodiversity in supporting longer-term adaptation and food security objectives, and illustrates good practices across ecosystems as showcased during the Ecosystem-based Adaptation in the agriculture sector webinar series.
The publication further emphasizes that ecosystem-based adaptation solutions should be based on participatory, inclusive and trans disciplinary approaches that promote locally appropriate strategies built on the nexus between scientific and traditional knowledge. Such solutions should also be strengthened through adaptive research, including deepening the understanding of the impacts of climate change and land use on ecosystems and their specific functions, as well as incentive and financial mechanisms that support adoption and uptake by food producers.
Pastoralist youth in towns and cities: Supporting the economic and social integration of pastoralist youth
29 October 2020More infoThe Sahel is experiencing structural transformations in rural areas with major repercussions on production systems, family economies and the living conditions and security of rural populations. Pastoral populations are particularly exposed to these transformative drivers; however, the lack of relevant information on pastoral youth, the conditions for their empowerment and the current conditions for pastoral family economies too often leaves room for overly generic discourse on the climatic determinants of crises.
This is why the FAO initiated an exploratory study conducted in 2018 and 2019 among young pastoralists in cities in Burkina Faso and Chad. This summary report presents and analyses the networks and migratory trajectories of young people of pastoral origin to cities in Burkina Faso and Chad and their institutional context in each country.
Country Projects
Burkina Faso
Burundi
eSwatini
Ethiopia
Ghana
Kenya
Malawi
Niger
Nigeria
Senegal
Tanzania
Uganda
Regional Hub
Project Themes
Agroforestry & Reforestation
Gender
Integrated Water Resource Management
Knowledge & Learning
Monitoring & Evaluation
Rural Extension & Capacity Development
Science, Policy & Institutions
Sustainable Land Management
Value Chains & Market Access
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