Land Use Governance and Development

Climate change, soil pollution, land use changes, and biodiversity loss are causing major challenges to agriculture, with negative impacts on food production, land and water resources, livelihoods and communities’ quality of life. LUCSUS research contributes towards strategies for sustainable agriculture, food security and sustainable development.

Woman in a field in Africa for LUCSUS land use theme. Illustration: Catrin Jakobsson.

We study the societal and environmental dimensions of land use, across areas such as perennial agriculture, smallholder farming, agroecology, land use changes, and carbon farming. We explore changes and impacts on livelihoods, ecosystems, land use, agricultural practices, gender, and culture, with a long-standing focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.

Land and topsoil are vital to human life on earth but severely underappreciated and understudied in research. To fully understand the complexity of the relations between land and society, an advanced interdisciplinary research approach is central.

Keywords: perennial agriculture, agroecology, food security, food sovereignty, adaption, mitigation, smallholder farming, low carbon, livelihoods, biodiversity, ecosystems, global health, land politics, gender, mobilisation.