The purpose of this report is to review the major effects of climate change on the agricultural sector; to examine the causes of vulnerability; and to suggest a range of potential options and investment opportunities for supporting adaptation efforts and, more generally, for building adaptive capacity. This report primarily focuses on appropriate strategies for adapting to climate change impacts that are projected to occur over the next one to two decades, although several issues covered in this report are important for long-term adaptation needs as well.

The issue of regional differences in development has moved to the center of the development debate in Sri Lanka, partly after the release of regional poverty data. For the past many years, there have been significant and increasing differences between the Western province and the rest of the country in terms of per capita income levels, growth rates of per capita income, poverty rates, and the structure of provincial economies. The structure of the report is as follows: chapter two looks at the poverty/growth/agriculture nexus in the poorest regions of Sri Lanka.

This report summarizes the findings of the study on Competitive Commercial Agriculture for Africa (CCAA). The objective of the CCAA study was to explore the feasibility of restoring international competitiveness and growth in African agriculture through the identification of products and production systems that can underpin rapid development of a competitive commercial agriculture.

This country note briefly summarizes information relevant to both climate change and agriculture in Bolivia, with focus on policy developments (including action plans and programs) and institutional make-up. Like most countries in Latin America, Bolivia has submitted one national communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with a second one under preparation. Land use change and forestry, coupled with agriculture, are by far the largest contributors to green house gas (GHG) emissions in the country.

The presentation was given in January 2009 and introduced why a new approach for livestock development for poverty alleviation was desirable, innovation, innovation systems and value chains, building of innovation platforms, learning-oriented monitoring and evaluation, and scaling up and out.

With irrigated vegetables development, interventions on the uses of improved inputs such as water lifting devices; varieties; on-farm water, nutrient and pest management, and access to credit and market information were introduced in Atsbi-Womberta district, Ethiopia. Besides, skill and uptake capacity of vegetable growers, extension service providers and vegetable traders were improved accordingly.

This paper shared lessons learnt from the project of Improving Productivity and Market Success in forage development approaches, scaling up strategies, opportunities and challenges in the process of farmer innovations and innovative interventions in the value-chain of market oriented livestock development in relation to sustainable use of natural resources in two districts in Ethiopia.

Graduate programs in agriculture and allied disciplines in Ethiopia are expected to make concrete contribution to market-oriented development of smallholder agriculture. This, among others, calls for realignment and engagement of the programs with smallholder farmers and, value chain, R&D and policy actors. No panacea exists, however, as to how to ensure effective linkages, and thereby responsiveness. Lessons from initiatives on the ground in the country and beyond is thus crucial to inform the development of appropriate policy and innovative strategy.

The USAID Building Agribusiness Capacity in East Timor (BACET) program was extended for three additional years in September 2008. Land O’Lakes gathered feedback from the Ministry of Agriculture, USAID, teachers and students and immediately initiated enhancements to improve the curriculum previously developed to reinforce practical and market-oriented skills.

This brochure is on the Virtual Extension and Research Information and Communication Network (VERCON), a conceptual model that any country can use and adapt to improve access to agricultural information and knowledge sharing and to strengthen the linkages between rural institutions and individuals, using information and communication technologies.