We examine five forested landscapes in Africa (Cameroon, Madagascar, and Tanzania) and Asia (Indonesia and Laos) at different stages of landscape change. In all five areas, forest cover (outside of protected areas) continues to decrease despite local people’s recognition of the importance of forest products and services. After forest conversion, agroforestry systems and fallows provide multiple functions and valued products, and retain significant biodiversity. But there are indications that such land use is transitory, with gradual simplification and loss of complex agroforests and fallows as land use becomes increasingly individualistic and profit driven. In Indonesia and Tanzania, farmers favor monocultures (rubber and oil palm, and sugarcane, respectively) for their high financial returns, with these systems replacing existing complex agroforests. In the study sites in Madagascar and Laos, investments in agroforests and new crops remain rare, despite government attempts to eradicate swidden systems and their multifunctional fallows. We discuss approaches to assessing local values related to landscape cover and associated goods and services. We highlight discrepancies between individual and collective responses in characterizing land use tendencies, and discuss the effects of accessibility on land management. We conclude that a combination of social, economic, and spatially explicit assessment methods is necessary to inform land use planning. Furthermore, any efforts to modify current trends will require clear incentives, such as through carbon finance. We speculate on the nature of such incentive schemes and the possibility of rewarding the provision of ecosystem services at a landscape scale and in a socially equitable manner.

Dietary patterns for consumers among the elite and middle‐income classes in developing countries are shifting rapidly toward the consumption of more animal‐based products. Although this shift presents opportunities, there are significant market failures affecting their preferences and willingness to pay (WTP). This study used a multistage sample survey of 309 consumers from three different communities of Bukavu, Eastern DRC, to examine the effect of socioeconomic/socio‐demographic characteristics and quality attributes on consumers’ purchasing decisions and WTP for meat products. The results suggested that about 53% of the respondents were dissatisfied with meat products in the market due to their high price, low quantity, unhealthiness, and harmful effects. Older female respondents living in urban areas were more likely to purchase meat products. Their WTP was significantly determined by attributes such as color, in‐mouth texture, and availability. Nutrition, harmful effects, and availability of meat products are the important factors that influence purchasing decisions among higher income groups. Addressing these market failures could have an impact on the meat market, improving the nutrition of low‐income consumers and ensuring food safety standards in DRC and other developing countries with similar challenges.

Social norms surrounding women's and men's mobility in public spaces often differ. Here we discuss how gendered mobilities and immobilities influence women's and men's capacities to innovate in agriculture. We analyze four case studies from Western Kenya and Southwestern Nigeria that draw on 28 focus group discussions and 32 individual interviews with a total of 225 rural and peri-urban women, men and youth. Findings show that women in both sites are less mobile than men due to norms that delimit the spaces where they can go, the purpose, length of time and time of day of their travels. Overall, Kenyan women and Nigerian men have better access to agricultural services and farmer groups than their gendered counterparts. In Southwestern Nigeria this is linked to masculine roles of heading and providing for the household and in Western Kenya to the construction of women as the 'developers' of their households. Access and group participation may reflect norms and expectations to fulfill gender roles rather than an individual's agency. This may (re)produce mobility pressures on time constrained gendered subjects. Frameworks to analyze factors that support women's and men's agency should be used to understand how gendered mobilities and immobilities are embedded in community contexts and affect engagement in agricultural innovation. This can inform the design of interventions to consider the ways in which norms and agency intersect and influence women's and men's mobilities, hence capacity to innovate in agriculture, thus supporting more gender transformative approaches.

Banana and plantain are one of the most important staple food crops and a significant source of income to smallholder farmers in the East African Great Lakes Region. Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) is a devastating bacterial disease that threatens smallholder production and livelihoods. We use a systems approach to describe how gender shapes roles and practices in the household, on the farm and in innovation processes. We draw on a case study in Burundi, where single disease stem removal (SDSR) has been introduced as a labour-saving package to reduce BXW incidence. Banana is grown by an estimated 90% of farmers, and BXW poses a critical threat to food security. We use qualitative data that include focus group discussions, interviews and transcripts from farmer learning group (FLG) discussions to describe gender norms, roles and practices and implications for awareness and uptake of SDSR in households. We identify gender patterns in innovation process, namely that men gain higher levels of access to information in FLGs than women and men are also primarily responsible for implementing SDSR. These patterns reflect gender-differentiated norms, roles and practices that are common in the household and in banana-based farming systems, thus demonstrating the ways that innovation processes perpetuate and reinforce common gender roles and practices. Women's participation in FLGs, albeit lower than men, increases the potential of women to implement specific practices of the SDSR package. Systems approaches may be similarly used in different contexts where awareness and uptake of banana disease management packages, and other technical innovations, are not well understood. We found that gender norms, roles and practices significantly influence uptake of SDSR practices and warrant further investigation across the region, where smallholder uptake remains a pressing challenge to establish household food security.

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