Livestock is significantly contributing to livelihood and food security of more than a billion people in different parts of the world. However, the performance has been poor in many developing countries, due to various reasons. This paper reviews the distribution of different species of large and small ruminants and their status of production in different countries. The Indian experiences of improving cattle and goat husbandry to generate sustainable livelihood, has been very successful in empowering the poor, which has also been presented.

Developing competitive agro-industries is crucial for generating employment and income opportunities. It also contributes to enhancing the quality of, and the demand for, farm products. Agro-industries have the potential to provide employment for the rural population not only in farming, but also in off-farm activities such as handling, packaging, processing, transporting and marketing of food and agricultural products. There are clear indications that agro- industriesare having a significant global impact on economic development and poverty reduction, in both urban and rural communities.

Agricultural value chains can be understood as the systems of people, organizations and activities needed to create process and deliver agricultural products from producers to consumers. Over time and due to huge changes that have happened in the surroundings, agricultural value chains have become very integrated and complex. Small farmers can prosper by joining in modern higher-level agricultural value chains, but there are numerous obstacles, as well.

The need of Farmer Producer organizations (FPo) was felt to overcome the problems of unorganized small farmers who lack access to resources and services. FPos emerged as an interface between small farmers and the external world by providing forward and backward linkages, giving them required voice, market access, bargaining power, economy of scale and better prices. Among different tangible and intangible benefits, marketing related benefits like access to different market channels, decrease in risk, decrease in transaction cost, economy of scale etc.

In this special issue teh authors will investigate, from the perspective of agricultural ethics (e.g. animal welfare, agricultural and food ethics, environmental ethics etc.) the potential to develop a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach to agriculture, and the limitations to such an enterprise. RRI is an emerging field in the European research and innovation (R&I) policy context that aims to balance economic, socio-cultural and environmental aspects in innovation processes.

Development processes, economic growth and agricultural modernization affect women and men in different ways and have not been gender neutral. Women are highly involved in agriculture, but their contribution tends to be undervalued and overseen. Sustainable agricultural innovations may include trade-offs and negative side-effects for women and men, or different social groups, depending on the intervention type and local context. Promising solutions are often technology-focused and not necessarily developed with consideration of gender and social disparity aspects.

This chapter presents an analytic framework to identify agricultural innovations that are sustainable and suitable for the poorest and most vulnerable parts of the population. The framework contains a set of tools to collect and evaluate information on appropriate innovations based on relevant criteria. It considers the dimensions of environmental resilience, economic viability, and social sustainability, as well as technical sustainability considering important properties of the innovation itself.

This book is an informative volume written by international experts in the fieldPresents recent advances in sustainable agriculture research and development focuses on environmentally sustainable and profitable food production systems. This volume is a ready reference on sustainable agriculture and reinforce the understanding for its utilization to develop environmentally sustainable and profitable food production systems.

As the COVID-19 pandemic turns into a global crisis, countries are taking measures to contain the pandemic. Supermarket shelves remain stocked for now. But a protracted pandemic crisis could quickly put a strain on the food supply chains, which is a complex web of interactions involving farmers, agricultural inputs, processing plants, shipping, retailers and more. The shipping industry is already reporting slowdowns because of port closures, and logistics hurdles could disrupt the supply chains in the coming weeks.

The development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has to meet the needs of farmers and sustainably support the competitiveness of agriculture in a rapidly changing digital world. Under certain conditions of use, digital tools could facilitate the application to agriculture of the historical, methodological and socio-economic principles defining agroecology. This chapter is composed of four sections. In the first section we define a framework to study agricultural IC tools.