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This paper incorporates climate variables, including rainfall conditions and patterns, into an impact assessment of the Value Chain Development Project in the Maputo and Limpopo Corridors (PROSUL) in Mozambique. It focuses on activities targeting improved pasture management, supplemental feed sources and livestock value chain development. Results show weather and climate conditions significantly impact households’ adoption of project activities and livestock productivity outcomes. Project beneficiaries in drought-prone areas are more likely to provide supplemental feed in the dry season, though livestock birth rates are still lower in those areas.

Evidence indicates that land rights are strongly associated with several indicators of well-being and development outcomes, including access to credit, resilience to shocks, productivity, and bargaining power. Accurately capturing gender differences in land rights is thus critical for development policy, prompting the need to shift from household-level land rights data collection to collecting more and better individual-level data on land rights. The importance of individual land rights has been recognized in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda, with the inclusion of two key indicators on land rights—SDG indicators 1.4.2 and 5.a.1. Although clear guidance exists for computing and monitoring these, the choice of data collection methods may influence the resulting indicators and the understanding of the underlying land rights. Specifically, research has shown that the use of proxy respondents in the collection of data on assets, including land, results in a biased understanding of men’s and women’s holdings vis-à-vis self-reporting. This paper uses data from a methodological experiment in Armenia to assess the implications of survey design—Snamely, respondent strategy and the level of disaggregation of land data—Son the measurement of individual land rights and SDG indicator monitoring. The findings suggest that in the context of Armenia, the measurement of SDG 5.a.1 and 1.4.2 (a) is robust to respondent approach and data disaggregation level, driven largely by the high rates of documentation. Meanwhile, land rights that are less objective, such as the right to bequeath and perception of tenure security, are sensitive to these survey design choices.

This working paper analyses the financial cost and benefit of adopting two different bundles of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices, which are tailored for the diverse conditions that prevail in southern Malawi. The results show the integration of CSA practices, including soil conservation, agroforestry, and livestock diversification, into conventional maize-legume and maize monocrop systems is profitable for farmers. Moreover, the profitability of these systems increases under extreme weather conditions that occur with increasing frequency in the region. However, the upfront costs and cost variability associated with the adoption of these CSA scenarios is high relative to conventional practices. In addition, while the Net Present Value is positive for the CSA scenarios, the monetary returns are small and are spread over a long investment period. These factors act as significant barriers to adopting CSA practices. Supporting farmers through climate financing or other mechanisms to make long-term private investment in CSA, based on the public benefits these investments generate for the environment, is critical for achieving widespread adoption., FAO Document Repository: https://doi.org/10.4060/cb5381en

The Progress towards Sustainable Agriculture initiative (PROSA) is a framework that seeks to complement ongoing efforts on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and particularly indicator 2.4.1, to support country-level assessments using data already available at the national level. Making agriculture more sustainable ��� productive, environmentally friendly, resilient and profitable is fundamental, as agriculture remains the main source of livelihood for the majority of the world���s poor and hungry. The pathway towards sustainable agriculture must ensure increasing output, but also make more efficient use of increasingly scarce global resources, be resilient to and help mitigate climate change, and improve human well-being. This technical study examines the key factors driving changes in trends in the indicators of sustainable agriculture and provides decision-makers with insights into viable options for achieving this goal. The study identifies five key groups of drivers that most influence these indicators globally. The ways in which each driver affects the multiple dimensions of sustainability highlights the interconnections, synergies and trade-offs that must be managed in different global contexts to achieve agricultural sustainability. The analysis can help decision-makers operating in different country contexts to identify practical solutions to ensure that their interventions contribute positively to a more sustainable agriculture., FAO Document Repository: https://doi.org/10.4060/cb7896en

Presentation 21113

FAO Document Repository: https://doi.org/10.4060/cb7072en

Preliminary evidence supports the notion that COVID-19 patients may have an increased susceptibility to develop venous thromboembolism (VTE). However, the magnitude of this association still needs to be defined. Furthermore, clinical predictors of thrombogenesis, and the relationship with the inflammatory status are currently unknown. On this basis, we conducted a retrospective, observational study on 259 consecutive COVID-19 patients admitted to an academic tertiary referral hospital in Northern Italy between March 19th and April 6th, 2020. Records of COVID-19 patients with a definite VTE event were reviewed for demographic information, co-morbidities, risk factors for VTE, laboratory tests, and anticoagulation treatment. Twenty-five cases among 259 COVID-19 patients developed VTE (9.6%), all of them having a Padua score > 4, although being under standard anticoagulation prophylaxis since hospital admission. In the VTE subcohort, we found a significant positive correlation between platelet count (PLT) and either C reactive protein (CRP) (p p = 0.0013), while a significant inverse correlation was observed between PLT and mean platelet volume (p p p = 0.002 and p = 0.005, respectively). No significant difference was found in d-dimer levels between VTE and non VTE patients, while significantly higher levels of LDH (p = 0.04) and IL-6 (p = 0.04) were observed in VTE patients in comparison to non-VTE patients. In conclusion, our findings showed a quite high prevalence of VTE in COVID-19 patients. Raised inflammatory indexes and increased serum levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines should raise the clinical suspicion of VTE.

In this work, we assess the role of a specific type of organized crime in influencing choices on where living within the city territory, and consequently, volatility in house prices. More specifically, we test how organized crime killing may influence house pricing behaviors. Firstly, we show evidences about how organized crime is associated with higher inequality of housing prices for Italian cities in 2011. Then, by collecting and geo referencing data on the city of Naples for the period 2002-2016, we test for the direct influence of homicides on the relevant territory, as on the neighboring districts. Results show a negative and significant impact of killing on the house prices either for sales or for rents and a positive effect in neighboring district, driving increases in within-city inequality.

Preliminary evidence supports the notion that COVID-19 patients may have an increased susceptibility to develop venous thromboembolism (VTE). However, the magnitude of this association still needs to be defined. Furthermore, clinical predictors of thrombogenesis, and the relationship with the inflammatory status are currently unknown. On this basis, we conducted a retrospective, observational study on 259 consecutive COVID-19 patients admitted to an academic tertiary referral hospital in Northern Italy between March 19th and April 6th, 2020. Records of COVID-19 patients with a definite VTE event were reviewed for demographic information, co-morbidities, risk factors for VTE, laboratory tests, and anticoagulation treatment. Twenty-five cases among 259 COVID-19 patients developed VTE (9.6%), all of them having a Padua score 4, although being under standard anticoagulation prophylaxis since hospital admission. In the VTE subcohort, we found a significant positive correlation between platelet count (PLT) and either C reactive protein (CRP) (p 0.0001) or lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (p = 0.0013), while a significant inverse correlation was observed between PLT and mean platelet volume (p 0.0001). Platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio significantly correlated with CRP (p 0.0001). The majority of VTE patients was male and younger compared to non-VTE patients (p = 0.002 and p = 0.005, respectively). No significant difference was found in D-dimer levels between VTE and non VTE patients, while significantly higher levels of LDH (p = 0.04) and IL-6 (p = 0.04) were observed in VTE patients in comparison to non-VTE patients. In conclusion, our findings showed a quite high prevalence of VTE in COVID-19 patients. Raised inflammatory indexes and increased serum levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines should raise the clinical suspicion of VTE.

Does receiving information on potential adverse weather conditions induce adaptive responses by smallholders? Do market institutions ease constraints to adaptation of these practices? This report examines these questions using a unique panel dataset of Zambian smallholder households collected before and after 2015/16 El Niño Southern Oscillation event. The analysis finds that farmers receiving drought-related seasonal forecasts are more likely to integrate drought tolerant crops into their cropping systems and to acquire improved maize seed varieties. These farmers, on average, are found to apply double the quantity of improved maize seeds than farmers residing in the same zones but not receiving weather information. Larger and more competitive private output markets function as enablers of smallholder adaptive responses to seasonal forecast information, as farmers with improved market access are more likely to shift toward drought resilient technologies than farmers with low output market access. Three policy recommendations emerge from the findings. First, while seasonal forecast information can induce adaptive responses by farmers, there is the need of improving access to this information, particularly for households in remote areas or limited asset ownership. Second, targeting voucher-based farmer input support programs based on seasonal forecast information can enable the crowding in of private investments in these regions and increase the adaptive responses of farmers, particularly resource constrained farmers. Finally, this analysis suggests that policies that incentivize private investment in agricultural markets should be considered within the broader framework of smallholder climate adaptation and resilience in Zambia. This includes strategies to improve agricultural trade predictability.

Climate variability and extreme events continue to impose significant challenges to households, particularly to those that are less resilient. By exploring the resilience capacity of rural Ethiopian households after the drought shock occurred in 2011, using panel data, this paper shows important socio-economic and policy determinants of households' resilience capacity. Three policy indications emerge from the analysis. First, government support programmes, such as the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), appear to sustain households' resilience by helping them to reach the level of pre-shock total consumption, but have no impact on the food-consumption resilience. Secondly, the 'selling out assets strategy' affects positively households' resilience, but only in terms of food consumption ' not total consumption. Finally, the presence of informal institutions, such as social networks providing financial support, sharply increases households' resilience by helping them to reach preshock levels of both food consumption and total consumption., FAO Document Repository: http://www.fao.org/3/CA2653EN/ca2653en.pdf

Crop diversification is an important policy objective to promote climate change adaptation, yet the drivers and impacts of crop diversification vary considerably depending on the specific combinations of crops a farmer grows. This paper examines adoption determinants of seven different cropping systems in Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique, and the impact of their adoption on maize productivity and income volatility ' using a multinomial endogenous treatment effect model. These cropping systems consist in different combinations of four categories of crops: dominate staple (maize), alternative staples, legumes, and cash-crops. The study finds that relative to maize mono-cropping systems, the vast majority of systems have either neutral or positive effects on maize productivity, and either reduce or have neutral effects on crop income volatility. In particular, cropping systems that include legumes produce better outcome in most cases than those that feature cash crops..., FAO Document Repository: http://www.fao.org/3/ca1562en/CA1562EN.pdf