discovery of animal feed Bt-corn in products for human consumption (Shiva et al., 2004). Maize exports from USA to Europe have also declined from 3.3 million tonnes in 1995 to 25,000 tonnes in 2002 due to fears about GMOs (Shiva et al., 2004). The American Farm Bureau estimates this loss has cost US farmers $300 million per year (Center for Food Safety, 2006).

3.2.4.3.2 Territorial policies

Attention to the livelihood needs of small-scale farmers and the rural poor has been insufficient, but now many developing nations are implementing policies to enhance incomes and reduce poverty.

Improving the livelihood of small-scale farmers has typically focused on market participation, through better access to information, increased efficiency of input supply systems, provision of credit, and better market chains and infrastructure (Sautier and Bienabe, 2005). In some countries, agricultural policies and market liberalization have increased economic differentiation among communities and households (Mazoyer and Roudart, 2002; IFAD, 2003). Smallscale, low-input agriculture systems have an important role as a social safety net (Perret et al., 2003), help to maintain cultural and community integrity, promote biodiversity and landscape conservation. However, the impacts of these commercialization policies on social conflict, land ownership, kinship, and resource distribution are not usually assessed (Le Billon, 2001).

Policy responses have been developed to enhance food and nutritional security, and food safety, and to alleviate the impacts of seasonal fluctuations on the poor.

Responses to food and nutritional insecurity have included the provision of infrastructure for health facilities and parental education (Cebu Study Team, 1992; Alderman and Garcia, 1994); programs ensuring equitable distribution of nutritious foods among family members; regulations to enforce the provision by retailers of nutritional information on food purchases (Herrman and Roeder, 1998), and the improvement of safety practices for those preparing, serving and storing food (Black et al., 1982; Stanton and Clemens, 1987; Henry et al., 1990). Other approaches to supporting marketing have included linking the domestic and international markets through involvement of the private sector, developing food aid, food-for-work programs, and price instability coping mechanisms (Boussard et al., 2005).

National conservation and development strategies have increasingly promoted more integration of sustainability goals at local and national levels.

National conservation and development strategies have recently gained as much political profile as land use planning in the past. National poverty reduction strategies, conservation strategies, and sustainable development strategies form a pool of cross-cutting approaches that seek to link institutions. This has involved the engagement of local stakeholders in participatory processes to negotiate broad visions of the future, and to focus local, regional and national institutions on poverty reduction, environmental sustainability (Tubiana, 2000), sustainable development (Dalal-Clayton and Bass, 2002) and participatory agroenterprise development (Ferris et al., 2006).

Government ministries and international agencies responsible for agriculture, livestock, fisheries and food crops are typically disconnected and in competition for resources, and power.

In many countries around the world the disconnections between the various subsectors of agriculture place them in competition for resources and power. Consequently, lack of compatibility between the policies and laws of different sectors make it difficult to promote sustainable development, as the potential synergies are lost, e.g., promoting forest removal for farmers to secure agricultural land tenure and grants (Angelsen and Kaimowitz, 2001). To address this problem, cross-sectoral national forums associated with international agreements/summits, have developed strategic planning initiatives to provide an integrated framework for sustainable development and poverty reduction, with mixed results. For example, the Action Plans of the Rio Earth Summit (www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21) and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002) put a premium on national level planning as a means to integrate economic, social and environmental objectives in development (Dalal-Clayton and Bass, 2002). These Action Plans have been most successful where they have (1) involved multistakeholder fora; consulted "vertically" to grassroots as well as "horizontally" between sectors; focused on different sectors' contributions to defined development and sustainability outcomes (rather than assuming sector roles); (2) been driven by high-level and "neutral" government bodies, and (3) been linked to expenditure reviews and budgets (Dalal-Clayton and Bass, 2002; Assey et al., 2007). In most countries the importance of farming for both economic growth and social safety nets is clear in such strategies, but few have stressed the links with forestry. However, due to lack of updated information, it has been difficult to progress beyond a broad, consultative approach and to identify specific tradeoff decisions, especially concerning environmental issues (Bojo and Reddy, 2003).

3.2.4.3.3 Scientific policies

Scientific policies shape the design and the use of AKST and subsequently, its impact on development, in various ways. Examples include the organization of disciplines within academic and AKST institutions, and the implementation of specific policies on intellectual property rights.