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This work explores an efficient integration of IoT devices based on context awareness in the agricultural sector. A four-layered framework is proposed in which automation techniques are embedded to get real-time context aware insights from the ecosystem of IoT. The framework is evaluated using a strategic tool called threats, opportunities, weaknesses and strengths (TOWS) matrix to measure the performance of automation techniques. This analysis points out various opportunities to innovate the livelihood of agrarian society around the globe.

In the context of neoliberal financialization, what is the role of debt in agrarian change? To address this question, I combine insights about debt from rural political ecology and development finance scholarship in order to analyze the relationship between changing agroecological practices and household indebtedness in a Cambodian rice- farming village. In the past two decades, Cambodians have borrowed from commercial microfinance institutions at the highest rate per capita of any country in the world. With fewer Cambodians farming, and agricultural production increasingly commodified, researchers have begun to study how the fast growth of Cambodia's microfinance industry contributes to these changes. By building upon the concept of financial landscapes, which highlights the diversity of social and material relations of debt in rural economies, I argue that agrarian change in Cambodia is entangled with rising household debts used to fund both agricultural production and social reproduction. I describe how non-monetary debt obligations underpinned labor-intensive rice agricultural practices in the 1980s and early 1990s, but have since been replaced by monetary debt used to fund household basic needs and commodified agricultural production. To make my argument, I draw upon 20 months of ethnographic research within a farming village in Kampot Province. This article contributes to rural political ecology and development finance scholarship by exploring debt in its diverse material and social forms at a time of deepening financialization, and how these debt relations in turn shape the economic and agroecological contours of contemporary agrarian change.

In spite of the insight commonality may have concerning agrarian practice, fact is that nowadays agricultural science diligence is accurate, precise, data-driven, and vigorous than ever. The emanation of the technologies based on Internet of Things (IoT) has reformed nearly each industry like smart city, smart health, smart grid, smart home, including “smart agriculture or precision agriculture”. Applying machine learning using the IoT data analytics in agricultural sector will rise new benefits to increase the quantity and quality of production from the crop fields to meet the increasing food demand. Such world-shattering advancements are rocking the current agrarian approaches and generating novel and best chances besides a number of limitations. This paper climaxes the power and capability of computing techniques including internet of things, wireless sensor networks, data analytics and machine learning in agriculture. The paper proposed the prediction model of Apple disease in the apple orchards of Kashmir valley using data analytics and Machine learning in IoT system. Furthermore, a local survey was conducted to know from the farmers about the trending technologies and their effect in precision agriculture. Finally, the paper discusses the challenges faced when incorporating these technologies in the traditional farming approaches.

With 76% of the total main workforce in agriculture and more than 50% small and medium landowning households, the village provides an important case study for understanding agrarian resilience. The conceptualisation of resilience has been majorly confined to a system or a territorial boundary. Agrarian resilience too is commonly assumed to be driven by forces within the agriculture and the rural. i.e. land ownership remains constant, the labour of the peasantry is spatially limited to agriculture, the capital is generated within agriculture and the networks and skills of the peasantry is also confined to agriculture. This has underscored the role of factors and processes working outside the agriculture in conceptualising agrarian resilience. While the primacy of the agrarian processes cannot be denied, there are often processes working outside an agrarian system that can also enable resilience. i.e. the rural workforce can diversify its labour outside agriculture in the urban non-farm sector, capital can also be generated from sources outside the agriculture. In this context, using the case study of a village dominated by small and medium landowning households in the Patiala district of Punjab in India, the paper shows that resilience is driven by processes both within and outside agriculture.

Unlike the rest of the state of Punjab in India, cotton remained the dominant monsoon crop in the southwest region till the 1990s. As it has been increasingly replaced by paddy in recent decades, this paper asks what this shift in cropping pattern reflects about the state’s agrarian capitalism. Towards an analysis of this question, it builds on James Scott’s idea of ‘political crops’ in the earliest states and places it in conversation with scholarship in critical agrarian studies, political ecology and commodity studies to account for relations of power under contemporary capitalism. Drawing on intensive primary research in the region, the paper contrasts the power relations generated by the production and circulation of the two crops. It shows that larger farmers are more likely to cultivate paddy due to better access to irrigation, and that the shift to paddy is threatening to make redundant the labour of landless Dalit women, who do cotton-picking, and increasing dependence on migrant male labour for paddy-transplanting. It also demonstrates how the different end uses of the two crops and the predominance of the private sector in the cotton markets versus the hitherto state-led nature of the paddy markets produce differential risks for farmers and traders. The paper concludes by suggesting that the shift from cotton to paddy represents capital intensification in response to Punjab’s mature capitalist conditions in agriculture but also results in new contradictions and axes of political struggle.

Protected geographical indications (PGIs) are an increasingly popular strategy for securing price premiums on food products in the interest of preserving associated rural livelihoods, however they often fail to show clear benefits for small or otherwise marginalized farmers. Their environmental record for supporting low-impact farming practices is also mixed. This case study of the PGI for Spanish almond-based desserts Turron de Jijona and Turron de Alicante details a yet unstudied form of such failures, where manufacturers seeking to scale production removed the requirement to source their primary ingredient (almonds) from the region's low-input farms and opted for intensively produced ingredients imported from abroad. This uprooting of turron from its agroecological origins highlights how the GI designation creates tension between the need to legitimate a product as rooted in traditional agrarian lifeways and the incentive to expand exports by industrial means. While previous studies show how such tension can result in agricultural intensification benefitting larger landholders within a given region, I argue this inequity and ecological risk operates at a global scale. Importantly, the turron case reveals that “quality” of a product is a moving target shaped not only by culinary legacies but also forged by a global political economy of agriculture suffering chronic overproduction. Finally, the role of the state in structuring PGI institutions more inclusively and adjudicating conflicts among actors along the value chain is fundamental to the capacity of these programs to achieve social and environmental goals.

Drawing on political-ecological vulnerability theory, this paper analyzes the impact of illegal-drug cultivation and its related violence on smallholder agrobiodiversity in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Oaxaca is a global agrobiodiversity hotspot where cannabis and opium poppy have been widely cultivated for decades. The study is based on 76 structured/semi-structured interviews with imprisoned farmers, harvest gatherers, and former soldiers in four state prisons. Results show that illegal-drug crops and native-food crops complement each other until a threshold of violence is crossed, which leads to the abandonment of agriculture due to murder, imprisonment, and out-migration. The specialization of smallholder agriculture in illegal-drug crops tends to favor crossing the threshold of violence. In most municipalities in this study, however, rather a diversification process took place in which illegal-drug crops were incorporated to food production systems, reducing both the exposure and the sensitivity of smallholders to structural and direct violence. Other adaptation strategies involved local organization and militarization of smallholders for collective-risk management and territorial control. Ultimately, by comparing five vulnerability scenarios, this paper argues that the combination of peasant organization, militarization, and crop/livelihood diversification in Oaxaca mitigates the violent agrarian change associated with this illegal economy, while conserving agrobiodiversity.

The article covers the main directions of joint work of scientific-research institutions (SRI) of agricultural profile in the Siberian region and Siberian Scientific Agricultural Library (SibSAL) functioning within the structure of the Siberian Branch of VASKHNIL (Russian Agricultural Academy) since its establishment in 1969 up to the reorganization period of science reform (2013-2021). The specificity of library and information activity of departmental library and multilevel model of interaction with institutes to satisfy information needs of scientists and specialists of agrarian research institutes in pre-reform period is presented. The results of monitoring the state of library and information activities in the institutes that have influenced the development of the new concept of interaction with SRI are presented. Based on the analysis of reorganization processes, a new structure of scientific organizations of the agricultural profile of Siberia is presented, which is the basis for the development of a new paradigm of interaction between research teams and the Siberian Scientific Agricultural Library, which received the status of a branch of the State Public Scientific and Technical Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences as a result of the reorganization. The analysis carried out in the conditions of reform and reorganization changes on the basis of a questionnaire shows new trends in expanding the range of interests of scientists to the possibilities of the information potential of the SibSAL as the largest branch library in the region. In the context of the change of management and the destruction of organizational and functional ties of agricultural research institutes that have become part of the regional centers of the SB RAS, the orientation to the development and strengthening of communications with the central academic libraries of the regions and the restoration of interaction with libraries of agricultural education on a new basis is noted. The definition of the system structure of agricultural research institutes and educational institutions of the region within the new boundaries of departmental relations of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education will allow establishing the vector of interaction of the SibSAL as a system-forming link. This will enable the development of the main functional areas of library and information activities in the Siberian region.

A survey was carried out on ethnoveterinary practices used by Fulani agropastoralists for maintaining the health and treating of livestock diseases in Ido agrarian community of Oyo State, Nigeria. Information was collected from fifty cattle herders using interview method with the help of Hausa interpreter and with the aid of questionnaires. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (cross tabulations) to generate frequencies and percentages. Plants used for various ethnoveterinary and ethnomedicinal purposes were revealed. Information on the type of animals kept and management practices used by the respondents show that 48% kept cattle, goat and sheep. 14% kept cattle and goat, 36% kept cattle and sheep, while 2% kept cattle only. All the respondents agreed to stomach and intestinal worms as the prevalent ruminant diseases in the area. However, 86% of respondents reported seasonal appearance of worm infestations during wet season, while 14% both seasons. Higher percentage of respondents (80%) adopted the use of traditional medicine and conventional drugs in treating animals. 88% showcased the effectiveness of such combination of traditional and conventional drugs as being very effective. 20% of the respondents used the whole plant in formulating herbal preparations. Urbanization, seasonal variations and unquantifiable dosage have been highlighted as challenges encountered in the use of ethnoveterinary medicine in Ido agrarian community. 12% used decoction method of preparation, 50% used infusion, while 30% mixed plant with non-plant to formulate herbal preparations in solving the problem of helminthiasis and other diseases. The respondents who used local remedies claimed the knowledge of ethnoveterinary was passed from the parents to the children, and this keeps going from generation to generation. The results obtained from this study show that the awareness and the availability of ethnoveterinary plants among Fulani agropastoralists in Ido agrarian community of Oyo state is high, and this is responsible for the high patronage and usage of ethnoveterinary plants in this community. Intestinal worm infestations are the prevalent livestock disease encountered by the Fulani agropastoralists in the study area.

Jogos tornam o ensino-aprendizado mais dinâmico e poucos trabalhos sobre o ensino de bioquímica na educação superior com auxílio de jogos são publicados. Neste trabalho objetivou-se conhecer a perspectiva docente sobre jogos no ensino-aprendizagem em bioquímica. A metodologia seguiu viés qualitativo com entrevista a oito professores de bioquímica nos cursos Ciências da Saúde, Ciências Biológicas e Ciências Agrárias de Instituições de Ensino Superior reconhecidas pelo Ministério da Educação. Quatro professores entrevistados não conheciam jogos como ferramenta didática. Contudo, os que utilizaram os jogos relataram melhora na compreensão dos estudantes e maior participação tornando o processo prazeroso. Portanto, são necessários investimentos em produtos e métodos facilitem o ensino-aprendizagem. Jogos são importantes para viabilizar experiências prazerosas e enriquecedoras no ensino de bioquímica.

Современная трансформация сельскохозяйственного производства, обусловленная переходом к цифровым технологиям и масштабным обновлением материальнотехнической базы, влечет за собой необходимость разработки научно обоснованной методики планирования потребности аграрного производства в рабочей силе и ее адаптации к новым вызовам. Статья посвящена разработке методики планирования кадрового потенциала аграрного сектора экономики в условиях цифровых технологий. Разработан алгоритм планирования кадровой потребности отрасли на среднесрочную перспективу. Ключевыми показателями плановой работы по определению потребности в кадровом обеспечении согласно методике должны выступить контрольные цифры приема в образовательные учреждения и создание условий по обеспечению трудоустройства выпускников. С целью обоснования прогноза ежегодной дополнительной потребности аграрного сектора экономики в кадрах предложен расчетно-аналитический инструментарий с применением технологий стратегического форсайтинга, который позволяет в условиях формирования аграрной экономики инновационного типа сформировать новую парадигму прогнозирования кадровой потребности для сельскохозяйственного производства, демонстрирующую переход от сценарного (вариативного) подхода к подходу «тройная спираль». Подход «тройная спираль» не только позволит прогнозировать качественную динамику кадрового потенциала сельского хозяйства, учитывающую изменение условий труда, тенденции масштабной модернизации производственных фондов, применение современных технологий, достигнув максимального соответствия между ресурсным потенциалом отрасли и ее ежегодными кадровыми потребностями, но и будет способствовать созданию системы объективного государственного регулирования общего профессионального и дополнительного аграрного образования на региональном уровне. Практическая значимость исследования заключается в разработке организационно-экономического механизма государственного регулирования вопроса кадрового обеспечения на основе проектных методов управления в сельском хозяйстве, позволяющего сбалансировать ситуацию на аграрном рынке труда. The modern transformation of agricultural production, due to the transition to digital technologies and large-scale modernization of the material and technical base, entails the need to develop a scientifically based methodology for planning the needs of agricultural production in the labor force and its adaptation to new challenges. The article is devoted to the development of a methodology for planning the personnel potential of the agricultural sector of the economy in the context of digital technologies. An algorithm for planning the personnel needs of the industry for the medium-term perspective has been developed. The key indicators of the planned work to determine the need for personnel support according to the methodology should be the control figures for admission to educational institutions and the creation of conditions for ensuring the employment of graduates. In order to justify the forecast of the annual additional demand for personnel in the agricultural sector of the economy, a calculation and analytical tool is proposed with the use of strategic foresight technologies, which allows, in the conditions of the formation of an innovative agricultural economy, to form a new paradigm for predicting the personnel need for agricultural production, demonstrating the transition from a scenario (variable) approach to the «triple helix» approach. The «Triple Helix» approach will not only predict the qualitative dynamics of the human resource potential of agriculture, taking into account changes in working conditions, trends in large-scale modernization of production assets, the use of modern technologies, achieving maximum compliance between the resource potential of the industry and its annual human resource needs, but will also contribute to the creation of a system of objective state regulation of general professional and additional agricultural education at the regional level. The practical significance of the study lies in the development of an organizational and economic mechanism for state regulation of the issue of labor security on the basis of project management methods in agriculture, which allows to balance the situation in the agricultural labor market.

Indonesia as an agrarian country faces several obstacles to achieving food sovereignty, due to the limited number of the younger generation involved in the agricultural sector. Most of the farmers are elderly with limited capacity. Therefore, as early as possible, it is necessary to make efforts to increase interest in farming among elementary school students through School Garden activities. The introduction of the School Garden becomes an interesting lesson because students can carry out farming activities independently. This community service program was carried out at SD Model located in Ngemplak, Sleman, Yogyakarta. This program aims to introduce the School Garden through urban farming so that it can foster interest in agriculture. The methods used include presentations with video tutorials and giving farming modules. The results of the implementation of the community service program showed that 97.7% of students liked the introduction of the School Garden activity and 81.4% of students felt that these activities foster their interest in agriculture.

Amidst growing concern about the displacement of rural populations exposed to climate change, new financial instruments are increasingly being presented as key tools for the management of climate risks. Index-based agricultural insurance (IBAI) is a particularly key example. Recent critical work has pointed to the deeply neoliberal character of IBAI and like interventions. However, the promotion of new financial instruments in response to crises of agrarian production has a much longer history in Africa and elsewhere. This article draws on Marx’s concept of ‘latent’ surplus populations to trace out and explain parallels between IBAI and colonial interventions in Senegal’s groundnut basin. Approaching the question in this way, the article highlights the long-run historical co-production and interdependence of the Senegalese state and a political ecology of groundnut production in which relations of indebtedness and the exposure to variable rainfall of a fragile relative surplus population has often been crucial to the mobilization of cheap labour for groundnut production. IBAI is thus positioned as part of a recurrent trajectory of emergency financial interventions aimed at smoothing out the contradictions implicit in this socio-ecological configuration.

Efficiency in farming productivity and optimum utilization of resources in the agriculture sector in developing countries is a challenge that can be addressed with technological advancement. There is also a strong need to work on the farming community’s engagement to make better farming decisions. This study aims to create an expert knowledge-based system (KBS) in a mobile application to help Indian farmers improve their agricultural practices and increase crop productivity. A prototype mobile application, ‘Farm-n-Pedia,’ is designed and used to fulfill the farmers’ informational and engagement needs. It provides a tool for agriculture management using a single platform. The expert KBS incorporates a crowdsourcing system as part of the knowledge base and interface design. The mobile application enables the users to access the worldwide information they want, get personalized expert guidance, interact with the local agrarian community, know about the latest farming techniques and technology, crowdsource data collection and increase agricultural productivity.

Agritourism has often been framed as a means to revitalize a declining rural economy by improving and diversifying household incomes, forestalling rural flight, and preserving agrarian cultures. We argue, however, that it can also have the propensity to create a different kind of rural revitalization, one that accentuates the production of spectacle, at times at the expense of food production. We draw from qualitative field research to examine the growing agritourism movement in the Philippines, a country with a struggling rural sector. We observe that agritourism sites in the Philippines negotiate space and work in multiple ways and highlight the tensions that farmers increasingly perceive on the ground. Some farmers persist in maintaining the production of food, while others shift more towards the staging of experience and spectacle to serve urbanite imaginations of the rural. We present various tendencies in the process of transitioning from farm to agritourism and argue that attention to the production of rural spectacle is important in understanding agrarian transitions at the farm and community level, and ultimately agritourism’s implications on rural revitalization.

How did the telegraph improve market integration in late imperial China? We exploit differences in the exogenous timing of telegraph construction in different prefectures from 1870 to 1911. The empirical results show that the arrival of the telegraph within a prefecture pair reduced the ratio of the two prefectures’ monthly high-grade rice prices by 6.6 percentage points in 9 southern Chinese provinces, or 17.2% of the mean of the dependent variable. The main results are robust to controlling for institutional or transportation changes occurring during the same period, to using an alternative measure of market integration, to using prices of mid-grade and low-grade rice, and to excluding outliers with low data quality. In addition, the effect of the telegraph was stronger for prefecture pairs in which information transmission was more costly, and traditional long-distance traders played an important role in the telegraph’s promotion of market integration. In conclusion, our findings help us understand how a new information technology enhanced market integration in a premodern agrarian society with an established commercial network.

In Nigeria, agriculture plays a critical role in the economy and remains the key to the country’s economic diversification plan. However, the agricultural sector is facing numerous challenges such as climate change, widespread insecurity, price volatility, poor government policies and the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated the already existing problems. This paper reviews the state of the COVID 19 pandemic in Nigeria and its effects on the agricultural sector and outlines the role of commissioners of agriculture in mitigating the effects of the pandemic on farmers with a view to catalyzing sustainable agricultural development in Nigeria. When the first case of COVID-19 was reported in February, 2020, the Federal government of Nigeria took some measures to help curb the spread of the virus. Although, these measures were critical to saving lives, they also significantly caused a disruption in agricultural activities and food systems in several ways such as decline in availability of farm labour and mechanization, limited availability of agricultural inputs, decline in food imports and exports, reduction in food supply, decline in household income and food consumption, increased food insecurity, panic buying and sharp price spikes. This paper suggests that commissioners of agriculture have important roles to play to help mitigate these negative impacts on agricultural livelihoods and food systems. These include a push for a bill to integrate social protection mechanisms into the Nigerian legal framework, lobby for increased budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector, formulation of good agricultural policies and provision of adequate infrastructures, organization of these farmers into farming clusters to help stimulate agglomeration economies by integrating agricultural value chains and development strategies, and frameworks and initiatives that will ensure a seamless transition from emergency response to resilience building. Key words: Coronavirus disease, government interventions, agrarian development, food production

This systematic review analyzes all 260 studies published in the Web of Science on gender and climate change in Africa. While there is no strong methodological bias, comparative case studies and sex disaggregated analyses predominate from a limited set of countries. Many articles covered the agrarian sector by comparing women’s and men’s on-farm vulnerability to a changing climate based on their adaptation behaviours. Though this literature recognizes women’s important conservation, farming, and food responsibilities, it oftentimes generalized these contributions without providing evidence. A number of themes were covered by a very limited number of articles, including coastal areas, conflict, education, energy, migration, urban areas, and water. Overall, more justice-oriented research is needed into the socioeconomic structures that intersect with social identities to make certain people, places, and institutions more vulnerable. Investigations into the power dynamics between (social) scientists and African institutions are also needed as most articles reviewed stem from North America and Europe and are locked beyond paywalls. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01631-w.

The purpose of the article is to highlight the process of creating opportunities for training fish farmers in the Kyrgyz Republic. Now fish farming is developing successfully in the country, the issue of training specialists in this economic sector is relevant, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland provides financial support, and the specialists from the University of Eastern Finland participate in resolving this issue. The article outlines the problems of opening a new direction of training “Fisheries and Aquaculture” at the K. I. Skryabin Kyrgyz National Agrarian University (KNAU). For this, curricula have been developed to train specialists on two directions: specialists with a bachelor’s degree in fisheries and aquaculture management, and fish breeder technicians, whose training will be carried out by the college. The curriculum includes cycles of subjects for the study of humanitarian and socio-economic disciplines, mathematical and natural science disciplines of the professional cycle; it defines goals, course content, a form of study and assessment for each subject; the complexity (number of credits) of the subject is determined. The article shows the process of formation of the direction and training of specialists in the field of fish farming. The authors of the article are members of a team of teachers who have been trained as future teachers of fish farming subjects. The article highlights the process of interaction of specialists of the University of Eastern Finland with the administration and teachers of KNAU in the FishEdu project. The result of this interaction was the opening of the direction “Fishing and Aquaculture” at KNAU and the specialty “Fish Breeder Technician” (in college).

Country-specific national pathways to sustainable food systems, reinforce how the ‘transformation’ of food systems envisaged by the United Nations Food Systems Summit is about endorsing hegemonic agribusiness capitalist markets control of global food systems. Using India as the site of analysis, the article argues that radical transformation is about dismantling and rebuilding a food system where social justice is central to Food Sovereignty. This is foremost a project of liberation from systemic structures of enslavement, and in the case of India these are capitalism, Brahminism and Brahminical patriarchy. It is an historic moment for movements (farmers, anti-caste, adivasi) to re-imagine, revision, and collectively act to create a democratic, egalitarian and just food system, core elements of which are redistributive agrarian land reforms and democratic territorial relocalizing of food farming systems.

This article argues that, till date, a single paradigm dominates the discourse on agrarian crisis and farmers’ movement against the anti-farmer dictates of the Indian state. There is a pressing need for the organic intellectuals of the masses to build an alternative discourse to examine the agrarian crisis and its roots. To this end, the present article reasons that the neoliberal resolution of the agrarian crisis that the authoritarian-corporate nexus has imposed on the farming community will produce mass dispossession and displacement in India. It exposes the misery of traditional consciousness that rules over the current farmers’ movement in India. The article concludes that the agrarian crisis which is actually a crisis of small farmers and agricultural labourers requires modern consciousness for egalitarian and long-term resolution.

The article is devoted to an actual pedagogical problem such as technological support of the ecological competence development process of future professionals in the agrarian area. The purpose of the article is to analyze modern didactic approaches to the environmental competence development of future professionals in the agricultural sector in terms of their professional training as a holistic pedagogical process of managing the educational and creative activities of students. The methodological basis of the study is the use of systematic, competency, activity, personal development and other modern methodological approaches. The experimental study was conducted at Kharkiv Petro Vasylenko National Technical University of Agriculture during 2019-2021 on the example of disciplines that develop the environmental competence of future professionals in bachelor's and master's degrees in specialties 201 "Agronomy" and 208 "Agroengineering". A model of ecological competence of future professionals in the agricultural sector is proposed. It is represented by a set of integrated components (emotional-value, cognitive, activity, personal-developmental). The initial peaks of this model are the requirements of educational and qualification characteristics, and the final peak is a set of criteria of environmental competence. Achieving educational results is carried out in the conditions of pedagogical technology of educational and creative activity management of students. The process of ecological competence development in the conditions of the offered pedagogical technology is presented by elements of management, co-management and self-management of educational and creative activity of students. The functional model of the environmental competence development in the management system of educational and creative activities of students is defined by the following functions: planning, organization, motivation, control and analysis, coordination and regulation. The results of the study confirmed the adequacy of the model of the ecological competence development process of future professionals of the agricultural profile during their professional training. Implementation of the functional management model of the ecological competence development process of future professionals in the agricultural sector will provide visualization of pedagogical conditions for activating didactic processes and organizational and technological algorithms and, as a consequence, improving the quality of training.

In response to an agrarian crisis, small-scale farmers in South India are experimenting with the application of agricultural ferments to their degraded soils. This article focuses on the Nectar of ...

This article examines the impact of COVID-19 on the livelihoods of widows and other single women farmers from the most backward districts of Maharashtra, a state in western India. COVID-19 led to food insecurity, loss of farm incomes, decline in employment opportunities and increased debt traps for single women farmers. The paper highlights how agrarian distress and pre-existing inequalities of class, caste and gender in access to food, incomes, credit, land, markets, and decision making, were exacerbated during the pandemic, further impoverishing these women farmers. To trace these effects, the paper draws on two types of evidence gathered in Maharashtra by MAKAAM, an informal all-India women farmer’s forum: observations during multiple rounds of interactions with over a hundred women farmers during the COVID-support work of providing ration and seeds undertaken by MAKAAM during India’s national lockdown in 2020, and a subsequent large-scale survey covering about a thousand women. The paper also focuses on the inadequacy of state response, both in terms of providing relief and in its ability to partner with women’s collectives and grassroots organisations for better outcomes. The article makes a case for strengthening social security measures for women farmers and enhancing their access to productive resources, agricultural programmes and decision-making spaces in relevant institutions.

The relevance of the topic of the article - the issues of innovative development of agroindustrial complex of Kazakhstan, which provides large-scale production, require detailed study. The goal - is to consider the positive aspects of the best practices of foreign countries regarding this problem and develop practical recommendations. Methods - generalization, quantitative and qualitative analysis, abstract logical. Results - in order to apply high technologies in agricultural sector, economically developed countries use subsidy systems, price support (USA), government assistance in obtaining income per hectare and payments for livestock (EU countries), income support through payments (Canada) and concessional lending (Brazil). In addition to financial assistance, agricultural producers in the USA, Canada and other countries are provided with information, legal, innovation, marketing, insurance and other types of support. Conclusions - innovative processes, expansion of the competitive environment in the AIC presuppose the effective use of scientific and technical potential, integration of science, education and production, technological modernization of the economy based on progressive methods. Innovation is reflected in the implementation of the strategic objectives of ensuring food security and effective regulation of the domestic food market in order to stimulate labor productivity in agriculture, increase export potential of agricultural sector. It is necessary to combine innovative activity in domestic agro-industrial production with international practice, which will increase production capacity of agrarian sector of the republic. The development trends of the world market convincingly show that there can be no other way in Kazakhstan than the formation of a new type of economy, widespread innovation.

This research is entitled Analysis of Small Business and Cooperative’s Growth in Tourism Area Integrated with Nurmilad Islamic Boarding School (NBS), Lempong, Wajo Regency, South Sulawesi. The purpose of this research is to find out and analyze the growth, constraints, and efforts in overcoming the obstacles that occur for small businesses and cooperative in tourism area integrated with Nurmilad Boarding Islamic Boarding School. This research used descriptive qualitative analysis method where data collection obtains by observation and interviews involving six informants.Based on the descriptive and analysis results, it can be concluded that the growth of small businesses and cooperatives in the sharia tourism area integrated with the Nurmilad Boarding School is very significant. The growth of the sharia tourism area has an impact on the growth of small businesses and cooperatives because of the integration policy between the tourist area management and the Nurmilad Islamic Boarding School. The obstacles found were the lack of human resources, inadequate accessibility of infrastructure, lack of maximum promotion, and the mindset of the people who were still influeced with agrarian mindset. Therefore, the efforts made are to collaborate with local governments to improve road infrastructure, maximize promotions so that more visitors come, and always analyzing consumer needs.

The goal is to determine the possibilities for development of transport component of the agro-industrial complex of Kazakhstan. Methods - monitoring of indicators for assessing the infrastructure potential of the transport network of the agrarian sector of the republic, economic and statistical, comparative analysis, computational and constructive, allowing to assess the state and dynamics of its infrastructure. Results - the criteria for expanding the scale of transport and logistics system of the agro-industrial complex were considered. The geographical position of the Republic of Kazakhstan allows it to become a transport hub in trade between the States of Europe and Asia, including in terms of the movement of agricultural products, while the determining factor is the development of a modern base for increasing traffic volumes. The role of this component for agroindustrial production, an important sphere of the country's economy, which occupies a special place in a single economic mechanism, significantly influencing the efficiency and competitiveness of agricultural sectors, has been determined. Conclusions - in geographic conditions of Kazakhstan: a large territory, location in the center of Eurasia, the presence of various connections between economic regions, allowing a balanced distribution of agricultural products within the republic and exporting it, development of transport communications, namely roads and various types of structures that contribute to the effective movement of food goods. Thus, it is possible to outline a number of indicators for assessing the development potential of transport infrastructure of the AIC, among which the most important are the creation of a road network and provision of facilities necessary for the full functioning of the country's transport logistics. For this, it is advisable to increase the number of labor and material- technical resources aimed at creating economic transport entities.

India is an agrarian based country with two third of population as farming community. Wheat, ‘King of cereals’ also the second most cultivated food crop has technological gap in adoption of improved variety, hence the present study aims to understand the socio-economic profile, knowledge, attitude and adoption level of respondents to identify the technological gap and increase the adoption rate. The present study is carried out with 120 respondents from ten villages of Holgarh block of Prayagraj district of Uttar Pradesh. Primary data collected with the help of semi-structured interview schedule and subjected to statistical analysis. The results indicated that majority of the wheat growers had medium level of knowledge, attitude and adoption towards SHUATS W-6 variety. Further, it was recommended for timely availability of seeds, fertilizer, proper marketing facility and reducing the cost of critical inputs. View Article DOI: 10.47856/ijaast.2021.v08i9.008

This article deals with the issue of carrying out agricultural work on the sacred lands of ancient Attica (Athens region) in the IV century B.C. The author relies on epigraphic sources, which are inscriptions on stone steles containing texts of lease agreements on sacred lands of the IV century B.C, and also uses information from ancient authors. The author also attracts scientific works of domestic and foreign authors devoted to the problem of agrarian relations in the ancient Greek polis. According to the author, the analysis and study of agricultural work on the territory of the sacred lands of Attica deserves a separate article, since the study of this issue makes it possible to more thoroughly consider agricultural relations in the Athenian polis of the IV century B.C, to present the meaning of sacred land ownership. In the first part of the article, the author analyzes the types and nature of agricultural work on sacred lands (temenos). The second part is devoted to the problem of responsibility of tenants and landlords for the performance of work on the territory of temenos. As a result, the author comes to certain conclusions. In the fourth century B.C, the sacred lands of Attica required special care after the end of the devastating actions of the Peloponnesian War. The temenos were at the disposal of the polis, with demes and religious unions as their landlords. The leasing of land made it possible to ensure the stable preservation of the land fund, to ensure the agricultural development of the temenos. Tenants (private individuals) were required to provide careful care for the leased land. At the same time, the author draws attention to the fact that in some cases the tenants were very well-known, wealthy citizens of the polis, for whom participation in the lease of sacred lands was a kind of liturgy. In such cases, it is difficult to determine who performed agricultural work on the leased land, most likely, it was special employees, whose work was paid by the tenant. At the same time, according to the epigraphica, there was no sublease.

Desde os anos 2000, observa-se a difusão do programa de pesquisas em Capitalismos Comparados (CC), envolvendo três gerações de estudos interdisciplinares nos campos da economia política e da sociologia econômica sobre Variedades de Capitalismo (VoC). Com foco quase que exclusivo nos países desenvolvidos nas duas primeiras gerações, em sua terceira geração os estudos em CC passaram a se ocupar também dos países em desenvolvimento, principalmente dos países emergentes, como os BRICS (Brasil, Rússia, Índia, China e África do Sul). Contudo, apesar de os mais importantes estudiosos comparatistas nas ciências sociais sempre terem se preocupado com a questão agrária nas grandes transformações que deram origem e definiram os rumos do mundo moderno, é notável a ausência de temas agrícolas, rurais e alimentares nos estudos em CC. No intuito de superar parte dessa lacuna, o artigo explora o lugar da “questão agroalimentar” nas variedades de capitalismo dos BRICS e o papel desempenhado por esses países no reordenamento do “regime alimentar internacional”.

Recent decades have witnessed unprecedented agrarian transformations and mining sector-led development projects in the countryside of the Global South. This study explores the impact of land approp...

At present, the state of the economy of the agricultural sector in many countries of the world, including in the countries of the European Union (EU), inherent in developed industry, has led to the transition to a new environmentally oriented agricultural policy. An important role is assigned to state support of agricultural producers, through subsidies, preferential credit policy, and in some countries, the complete abolition of taxation of entrepreneurial activity in rural areas, which confirms the relevance and national economic significance of the article. In domestic agroeconomic science and practice, there is no scientific concept of state participation in the process of bringing the agricultural sector out of the crisis. Research objectives – consider the development policy of the agricultural sector of the EU countries; study the level of state support for agricultural producers. The purpose of the work is to consider the degree of development of the agricultural policy of the EU countries in the context of ensuring food security. The methods and methodology of the research were general scientific, particular methods of cognition, including the historical and logical, the method of observation and comparison. Shows the main approaches to state regulation of the development of the agro-industrial sector at the level of the European Union as a whole and in the context of member countries; characteristic features and principles that determine the success and integrity of a unified agricultural policy; factors contributing to the productivity of agricultural land; agro-ecological requirements restricting the import of genetically modified products; the main tasks in the development of a new policy of the agrarian sector of the economy; priority directions of regulation of measures to support agricultural producers, integrated development of rural areas, increasing the competitiveness of the EU agricultural sector. The practical significance of the work lies in the fact that this study will allow the state bodies of Belarus to better understand how it is necessary to form an agricultural policy in the context of ensuring food security.

In Cambodia and Ghana, the promotion of women's equal rights to food and land has occurred in parallel with processes of trade liberalization and agricultural commercialization. This article consid...

The food supply and demand situation for the 2020 fiscal year concerning the main seasonal crops in Nigeria was unpredictable due to the effect of Covid-19 pandemic. Federal and state governments laid much emphasis as a result on agriculture, especially crop production in order to produce food enough to ameliorate hunger, which is one of the negative effects of Covid-19. Nigeria been a rain fed dependent agricultural nation, follows the dictate of weather and other weather elements in her agricultural activities. With climate change and the effect of Little Dry Season, there was a reduction in rainfall in mid-July through August 2020. Rice and Maize which are among the staple foods in Nigeria requires about 750mm to 1200mm of rainfall to thrive. The mean monthly rainfall recorded in our study area (part of Anambra River Basin) consisting of Ayamelum, Anambra West, Anambra East, Oyi and Dunukofia local government areas are 21.15mm and 3.25mm for July, 2020 and August, 2020 respectively. As a result of the shortage of rainfall in these two months, the farmers and the authors observed these negative outcomes which are early maturity of crops; early harvesting of crops as well as poor yields for early season crops. While during the late season planting, farming was affected by the hardening of the ground as a result of absence of rainfall; undissolved fertilizers in farm lands; partial germination of scattered seedlings; Ant, Birds and Rodent infestation and stunted growth. Base on our observation, it was concluded that yields and harvest would be poor and subsequently there would be shortage of food and price hike in food items. The paper recommends for the revitalization of the moribund irrigation facility in Omor, Ayamelum local government area to provide for the shortfall in moisture that is likely to occur in the absence of rainfall.

This article uses Black liberation theology (BLIBT) as a framework to theorize “the spirit” in the alternative food and sustainable agriculture movement. While BLIBT was formally named by theologian James Cone, it was born of the struggles of Black people in the United States who believed that God called Black people to be free, and God called Black preachers to preach Black liberation. I argue that Black liberation is a grounded vantage point to understand how some Black people might find freedom through food and agriculture. In the first potion of the paper, I make a claim for the importance of studying spirituality in agrarian and food spaces, whether or not a researcher is spiritually inclined. In the second portion of the paper, I delve deeper into Cone’s articulation of BLIBT, and explore how we might begin to theorize it as an agrarian mandate including: a call for an urgent food source, liberation of the individual Black body, community ownership of land, the spirit of Black religious spaces, an emphasis on land reparations, and the freedom to dream. I conclude with a call for why an attention to BLIBT is called for in our present moment.

The article explored the problems of formation and improvement of mechanisms to ensure the development of the agricultural sector in the state's economic security system. It has been found that today socio-economic transformations actualize the urgent need to improve scientific and methodological research and development on the creation and implementation of an effective state agrarian policy, as well as the development of innovative management decisions to ensure and accelerate the development of the agricultural sector to strengthen the general economic security system of Ukraine. Approaches to the definition of the category “economic security of the state” were summarized and a refined definition was provided. A universal and effective mechanism for ensuring the development of the agricultural sector in the system of economic security of the state has been developed, the functioning of which, in turn, is directly dependent on internal and external destabilizing factors and will be based on the improvement of three interconnected mechanisms: strengthening the food security of the state; increasing investment attractiveness by introducing an innovative component; optimization of agricultural sector financial support. The differences and interrelationships of the types of destabilizing factors affecting the economic security of the agricultural sector were analyzed and it was concluded that all these factors can both negatively affect the entire economic security system in the agricultural sector and be areas of constant improvement. Block proposals for strengthening the food security of the state are described. It has been proved that to be able to develop and implement these innovative methods requires significant investment injections from both the state and Ukrainian investors, as well as external investments on favorable conditions for agricultural sector entities. Proposals on optimization of financial support of the agricultural sector in the changing conditions of the present are presented.The article explored the problems of formation and improvement of mechanisms to ensure the development of the agricultural sector in the state's economic security system. It has been found that today socio-economic transformations actualize the urgent need to improve scientific and methodological research and development on the creation and implementation of an effective state agrarian policy, as well as the development of innovative management decisions to ensure and accelerate the development of the agricultural sector to strengthen the general economic security system of Ukraine. Approaches to the definition of the category “economic security of the state” were summarized and a refined definition was provided. A universal and effective mechanism for ensuring the development of the agricultural sector in the system of economic security of the state has been developed, the functioning of which, in turn, is directly dependent on internal and external destabilizing factors and will be based on the improvement of three interconnected mechanisms: strengthening the food security of the state; increasing investment attractiveness by introducing an innovative component; optimization of agricultural sector financial support. The differences and interrelationships of the types of destabilizing factors affecting the economic security of the agricultural sector were analyzed and it was concluded that all these factors can both negatively affect the entire economic security system in the agricultural sector and be areas of constant improvement. Block proposals for strengthening the food security of the state are described. It has been proved that to be able to develop and implement these innovative methods requires significant investment injections from both the state and Ukrainian investors, as well as external investments on favorable conditions for agricultural sector entities. Proposals on optimization of financial support of the agricultural sector in the changing conditions of the present are presented.

MIRZA SUKNISHVILI Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University, PhD student in Business Administration Georgia, Batumi E-mail: Mirzasuknishvili@gmail.com http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0365- 2226 Abstract The issue of food security and providing it to the population in accordance with the norms of the world medical organizations is not only a socio-political issue, but also of strategic importance for any country. Judging by the official data, judging by the annual volume of production of basic foodstuffs, even half of them do not meet the requirements set by the norms. There is an even greater disproportion in terms of grain production. This is when the country can cover 70% of its annual needs through domestic production in accordance with proper agrarian development. The same is true of the production of vegetables, horticultural, some single and perennial crops (except grapes, wine and wine materials) and livestock products. The study found that farmers, entrepreneurs and agricultural workers in the agricultural sector are still similar to smallholder farms, have less contribution to total production, very little cash income and hence the opportunity to expand their activities

Em 1950, o Governo de Getúlio Vargas exerceu uma forte influência na formação dos profissionais agrários, através da federalização das escolas superiores agrícolas (Lei 1.055/50). Essa ação foi motivada pela necessidade de abastecer o mercado internacional, cuja economia se fragilizou após a Crise de 1929 e a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Logo, exigiam-se profissionais qualificados, para geração da modernização da agricultura e aumento da produção. Partindo desse contexto, este estudo realiza o levantamento do Estado de conhecimento sobre criação e evolução dos cursos em Ciências Agrárias em uma perspectiva nacional, com enfoque na Amazônia. A busca das produções científicas abrangeu o período de 1950 a 2021, ocorrendo em cinco bases de dados, a citar Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE), Bases de Dados da Pesquisa Agropecuária (BDPA), Biblioteca Digital Brasileira de Teses e Dissertação (BDTD); Banco de Dados Bibliográficos, da Universidade de São Paulo (Dedalus) e Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO). Foram resgatados 2.832 estudos, dentre quais 42 atenderam aos objetivos desta pesquisa. Com isso, constatou-se: a economia interna e externa foi fator determinante para expansão dos cursos (83,34%); a Agronomia é o dos cursos agrários mais referenciado nos estudos (28%); e a região sudeste é reduto das instituições de ensino superior (IES) com mais pesquisas sobre o tema pesquisado (28,60%). Destarte, ainda hoje, a ordem político-econômica é determinante para o crescimento das ciências agrárias, no tocante à implantação de IES, expansão dos cursos e pesquisas agrícolas.

In this article, the authors investigate an urgent problem for the Belgorod region related to the provision of the agro-industrial complex of the region with highly qualified and innovation-oriented personnel. The results of the sociological research carried out by the authors convincingly indicate the existence of a significant gap between the requirements of modern employers to workers and the quality of knowledge, skills and abilities that university graduates currently possess. The overly theoretical nature of the education received and its isolation from the realities of production activity are noted. To eliminate the gap that has arisen, according to the authors, it is possible only if the mechanisms of social partnership between education and business are actively developed. On the example of the Belgorod State Agrarian University named after V.Ya. Gorin, the authors of the article investigate a successful example of organizing such a partnership.

Failure to sustain most of the rural poor and food security programmes in Nigeria after their life span is due to poor productivity of the capital investment of a project to generate a remunerative income to sustain a typical agrarian farming household in Nigeria. Thus, to critically investigate this hypothetical proposition, this research aimed at evaluating the viability of the IFAD rice project among the beneficiaries in Niger State of Nigeria. Undated data of the 2018 rainfed cropping season was elicited from 111 farmers through a multi-stage sampling technique and the information were collected viaa structured questionnaire complemented with an interview schedule. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data collected. The empirical results showed that the rice project in the study area is likely not to be sustained after the stipulated time frame for the programme as inspite of the programme aim of doubling farmers’ income viz. value chain. The capital investment is not productive to sustain an average farming household composed of 8 persons having an operational holding of less than two hectares. Therefore, the study recommends provision of consumption credit in addition to the production credit advanced to the farmers in order to make the capital investment viable so that its turnover after each production season will be consistently re-invested into the rice project and possibility of a farmer taken-up additional activities along the chain, thus keeping the business going concern viable and sustainable.

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la evolución del sector de la fabricación y distribución de tractores agrícolas en España (1950-1994). Analizamos distintas empresas, fabricantes y distribuidoras para comprender la función de la oferta en el marco de los grandes cambios tecnológicos de la industrialización de la agricultura durante la Dictadura franquista, la transición y los primeros años de la democracia en España. Partimos de un enfoque elaborado desde la historia agraria, aunque combinando perspectivas con la historia industrial y empresarial, para analizar las distintas estrategias de empresas y multinacionales del sector, el marco regulador estatal y la demanda de tractores. Para la elaboración del artículo recurrimos a fuentes generadas por la Administración del Estado, documentación interna de empresas, revistas divulgativas y, también, entrevistas de historia oral.

The hunger riots that Cameroon experienced in February 2008 were on the one hand a local manifestation of the world food crisis (2007-2008) and on the other hand, a result of ineffective agricultural policies implemented since the 1960s. The analysis of public food security policies in Cameroon from 1960 to 2008, highlights the inability of the latter to fight effectively against food insecurity and to bring Cameroonian agriculture out of the rut. These riots were likely to have a long-term effect on Cameroon's socio-economic trajectory. Because they were food for thought for the Cameroonian government, which ended up realizing that the constraints facing agricultural development felt an immediate need for solutions after the end of the riots. The post-riot strategies implemented by the Cameroonian government boil down to all the measures taken to stem the impact of the crisis and allow food security to all social strata. However, these economic redistribution strategies adopted by the Cameroonian government to allow the poorest to have access to food at an affordable price still fail to stem the situation. Literature relating to the riots of February 2008 in Cameroon abounds, but little is concerned with the analysis of the causes and post-riot government strategies, which is very crucial to understanding the origins of the problems facing the Cameroonian agricultural community today. This article examines the distant and immediate causes of the February 2008 hunger riots in Cameroon, including the post-riot strategies implemented by the Cameroonian government to combat food insecurity and the contribution of international partners.

On the example of Żuławy, the paper discusses questions connected with postwar migrations to the Polish Western and Northern Territories, and their consequences for agriculture. It focuses on issues related to the development of the region by new settlers and the changes taking place in the cultural and social landscape. The text highlights the region’s character and its economic conditions before 1945, and considers agricultural settlement and the agrarian and social structure after 1945. Post-war agriculture in the region is presented in the light of the cultural heritage described in scientific literature, the first settlers’ recollections written in the form of diaries in the early 1970s, and biographical accounts that the author recorded in Żuławy in 2018.

The article discusses the problems of efficient agricultural land use under conditions of institutional transformations. Analysis of the materials of agricultural censuses and annual reports of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation shows the incompleteness and inconsistency of the available data. The low quality of information on the availability and use of agricultural land is one of the main factors hindering the formation of a full-fledged market for land plots and improvement in land use efficiency. Semiformalized interviews with the heads and specialists of the regional administrations of Altai Krai showed that solving the majority of land registration and inventory problems is delegated to the local level. The introduction of unified geographic information systems and databases containing up-to-date information on the quantity and quality of available land resources, the distribution of land rights, and the nature of land use could change the situation with monitoring land use in the agricultural sector. However, digital technologies do not guarantee improved data quality. This can be hindered by various institutional, legal, economic, organizational, technical, technological, and social factors that largely determine local practices that have developed under inconsistent land reform conditions. The authors conclude that minimizing the currently obvious difficulties and costs of regular innovations in land use involves transformation of the entire system of relations between regulators, landowners, and land users: from the rules of state support for producers to legal mechanisms for the accumulation of land resources (primarily unclaimed) from effective land users. Otherwise, very expensive measures initiated from above will not yield the expected effect and, instead of streamlining the system of land relations, may create even greater digital chaos.

O presente trabalho é um estudo sobre a política de crédito rural no Espírito Santo, definida como instrumento importante no desenvolvimento econômico e social, através do atendimento das necessidades dos produtores que precisam de recursos que possibilitem seus investimentos. Sua função é ainda mais importante no Espírito Santo, uma vez que o território capixaba é em sua maioria agrário, sendo que a área efetivamente urbanizada se concentra em poucas cidades situadas principalmente na região Metropolitana. Assim, analisar e caracterizar os resultados da política do crédito rural no estado é imprescindível para entender o apoio que o setor está a receber através de tal política. Desse modo, o objetivo é caracterizar a política de crédito rural no estado capixaba a partir da determinação do atual cenário da sua economia, do entendimento dessa política agrária e da análise dos dados do crédito direcionado ao campo.

Today there is an intensification of activities and the associated increase in the dynamics of change in all sectors of the economy, including the agrarian sector, in Ukraine and throughout the world. This makes it urgently necessary for agricultural enterprises to adapt to such conditions in order to ensure the efficiency of their activities and long-term competitiveness. The most effective way to address this issue is to introduce development management of agricultural enterprises. The article considers the concept of «development» and «enterprise development», clarifies the meaning of the concept of «enterprise development management», and defines the purpose of such management. In accordance with the content and the proposed definition of the concept of «enterprise development management», the study highlights its characteristic features. It analyzes the main indicators of development of the agricultural enterprises in Ukraine, which demonstrated deterioration in the dynamics of their performance. The findings show the importance of development management of agricultural enterprises. To find a solution, the article suggests an algorithm for development management of agricultural enterprises that is developed, substantiated and based on the tools of strategic management. Adherence to such an algorithm will contribute to the effective realization of the potential of enterprises, rapid adaptation to changes in the external environment, the formation and implementation of effective development strategies, which will ultimately ensure economic, social and environmental efficiency and long-term competitiveness. The proposed algorithm is typical for agricultural enterprises of different organizational and legal forms of management, size, specialization, etc. and at the same time flexible to take into account the peculiarities of certain types of enterprises, which enables to achieve maximum efficiency of enterprise development on the basis of specification of its certain stages. Keywords: development, enterprise development, enterprise development management, competitiveness, agricultural enterprise. JEL Classification Q12 Formulas: 0; fig.: 3; tabl.: 2; bibl.: 22.

Ending hunger and alleviating poverty are key goals for a sustainable future. Food security is a constant challenge for agrarian communities in low-income countries, especially in Madagascar. We investigated agricultural practices, household characteristics, and food security in northeast Madagascar. We tested whether agricultural practices, demographics, and socioeconomics in rural populations were related to food security. Over 70% of respondents reported times during the last three years during which food for the household was insufficient, and the most frequently reported cause was small land size (57%). The probability of food insecurity decreased with increasing vanilla yield, rice yield, and land size. There was an interaction effect between land size and household size; larger families with smaller land holdings had higher food insecurity, while larger families with larger land had lower food insecurity. Other socioeconomic and agricultural variables were not significantly related to food insecurity, including material wealth, education, crop diversity, and livestock ownership. Our results highlight the high levels of food insecurity in these communities and point to interventions that would alleviate food stress. In particular, because current crop and livestock diversity were low, agricultural diversification could improve outputs and mitigate food insecurity. Development of sustainable agricultural intensification, including improving rice and vanilla cultivation to raise yields on small land areas, would likely have positive impacts on food security and alleviating poverty. Increasing market access and off-farm income, as well as improving policies related to land tenure could also play valuable roles in mitigating challenges in food security. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12571-021-01179-3.