For a long time, the agricultural policies of the Mercosur states ignored family farming, focusing on promoting individual crops and export production instead. Rural development was not on the agenda. Only after the turn of the millennium did a process of rethinking set in.

Rural markets are important traditional institutional frameworks which perform a number of key functions in rural societies. Our author presents the major ones in Nigeria.

Not only is biodiversity a valuable asset, but it also represents a possible source of income for rural communities. The article shows how Peru is making use of this potential in the context of the BioTrade concept to sustain both, rural livelihood and conservation of native biodiversity. It further analyses the challenges farmers face and how targeted support for supply chains can help to overcome these challenges.

Agriculture is the basis for the livelihoods of the rural Congolese population. Yet despite its considerable potential, the sector and its many smallscale producers are barely served by microfinance institutions. The lack of adapted financial products for development of the farming sector is one of the reasons for the country’s continuing dependence on food imports.

Rural development and urbanisation are often seen as competing, but in most cases are intimately linked. It is essential that policies re? ect and support the many positive links between rural and urban areas, enterprises and people. This in turn requires a better understanding of urbanisation processes and the role of small towns.

More and more young people are leaving the rural areas and migrating to the cities. Although the industrial and the developing nations come from different starting points, such migration ultimately has the same effect on village life and the rural areas everywhere. In the industrial nations the agricultural population is ageing.

Migration is a huge phenomenon. The share of migrants in industrial countries’ populations doubled over the past three decades, and remittances ? ows to developing countries are larger than foreign investment or overseas aid. In many developing countries the percentage of the population working abroad and the percentage of Global Domestic Product (GDP) represented by remittances run into double digits.

Burkina Faso is already using all its possible farmland. In future the only way to feed the rapidly growing population will be by increasing yields on existing land. Building stone contour lines enables rainwater to be better used and slows erosion.

The sheer number of refugees from Zimbabwe puts a heavy burden on the province of Limpopo in South Africa. These new arrivals strain the already weak structure of the local labour market. The result is frustration and bitterness for local people.

Surveys over several years in the Kagera region of Tanzania have shown that migration has a positive impact on people's living standards, even for those who remain in agriculture. On the other hand, there is evidence of migrants ending up in unfavourable social environments and perhaps even that the traditional home communities are protecting their livelihood and survival by setting up subtle exit barriers, in the form of norms, preventing migration of their most productive members. So, should migration be encouraged at all costs?

In today’s China, about 220 million rural migrant workers are on the move – this is more than two thirds of the US population – and their number is set to increase in the course of the country’s urbanisation process. At a rate of 47 percent, still below global average, and against the backdrop of a marked rural-urban divide, urbanisation is not only an effect of rapid economic development, but also forms part of the Chinese government’s economic development strategy.

Labour migration, primarily to Côte d’Ivoire, masked the high rate of natural population growth in Burkina Faso for many years. However, since a political crisis began in this neighbouring country in late 1999, many Burkinabe have returned home. This posed major challenges, especially for rural areas. In the south of the country, shrewd population policy and appropriate rural development programmes have been e? ective in meeting these challenges.