The world is witnessing a period in its history when the increasing socio-political upheavals are taking the lives of thousands, and destroying the natural wealth of our planet. Poverty and food insecurity are two key forces driving this destruction.

Built on earlier quantitative assessment of the socio-economic drivers of the above changes, this paper focuses on the role of national level policies implemented in the area over the past decades, and how these have affected the traditional institutional setting that determines land use, propert