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The Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari (MAIB) is part of CIHEAM (International Centre for Advanced Studies on Mediterranean Agriculture). This is a Centre for post-graduate training, applied scientific research and a promoter of regional and in-situ partnership activities.
It works in four thematic areas:
- Land and water resources management
- Integrated pest management of Mediterranean fruit tree crops
- Mediterranean organic farming
- Sustainable agriculture and rural development
At present, the focus on sustainable livelihoods is in two main activities.
The Sustainable Agriculture course, organised every year, trains operators that can promote agriculture and rural development processes based on people centred approaches and natural resource conservation. There is a focus on innovators, local groups, and institutions as part of the social structures, which influence the livelihood choices, and on the adoption of the conservative and regenerative technologies and practices, whose output will have an impact on the available capitals, both positive and negative. Participants, through field activities in the home countries, learn how to use tools for participatory socio-economic research to analyse rural livelihoods, with emphasis to the worse off categories.
In the framework of the SARD Mountain project, supported by FAO, MAIB acts as the Regional Focal Point for the Mediterranean region and it has carried out a set of activities in order to learn about the ways Policies, Institutions and Processes (PIPs) concerned with agriculture and rural development are supportive of Mediterranean mountain communities in earning sustainable livelihoods. MAIB has selected and mobilised a range of diversified Mediterranean stakeholders, interested and involved in mountain development issues at the regional, country and local level, and representing the governmental and non-governmental sphere, in order to assess the strengths and weaknesses of policies for SARD in Mediterranean mountain areas; it has organised a workshop for learning lessons on policies for sustainable livelihoods in mountain areas; it has selected and collected information on significant stories on sustainable rural livelihoods. |
