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Central Asia underwent an agricultural transformation in the 20th century that was neither efficient nor sustainable. There is a need for innovations that will remedy these deficits by reversing environmental degradation and ensuring poverty alleviation. This book provides science-based findings and recommendations for restructuring land and water use and agricultural value chains to enable ecologically and economically sound practices that increase resource use efficiency, rehabilitate ecosystem functions, and enhance rural incomes. Innovations were designed in concert with stakeholders. The prospective benefits are shown for the Khorezm region, part of the lower Amudarya region, Uzbekistan, but the findings can be extrapolated to regions facing similar agro-ecological challenges.

AbstractThis study investigated key environmental factors causing intervillage migration by farmers. Therefore, it used household data from surveys, semistructured interviews, life histories, and focus group discussions in southwestern Burkina Faso, West Africa. The results showed that 1) when referring to the experienced historical weather and climate, farmers were aware of the effects of ongoing climate and environmental change; 2) soil degradation, land tenure insecurity, and lack of rainfall were major drivers of environment-induced migration; and 3) soil fertility, productivity, rainfall, and humidity, as well as land tenure security, were major pull factors. Farmers indirectly identified population pressure as a major driver of intervillage migration since it contributes to land degradation and land tenure insecurity. It is argued that migration implicitly adds to the natural climate and environmental stresses. When aiming to elaborate suitable land-use planning, the findings call for additional research that is needed to understand better the complex interrelationships between environmental drivers and permanent, environment-driven intervillage migration.