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Mountainous regions are crucial ecosystems, serving as vital sources of fresh water, energy, biodiversity, and food for local populations. These areas are ecologically complex and vulnerable, characterized by significant ethnic, socio-cultural, and economic diversity. However, they face increasing pressures from population growth, migration, resource exploitation, and rising demands. This situation contributes to widespread poverty and food insecurity in rural communities. Given their importance and challenges, mountainous regions present a unique challenge for agricultural research focused on environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation, and food security. The University of Hohenheim’s long-term research initiative, “Sustainable Land Use and Rural Development in Mountainous Regions of Southeast Asia,” addresses these issues through an integrated interdisciplinary approach. This program examines sustainable innovations in agricultural production systems that combine fruit trees, crops, livestock, and aquaculture, while also considering their interactions with soil, water, and agrochemical use. Additionally, the research explores the impacts on landscape diversity and the dynamics of pests and beneficial insects. Further along the agricultural value chain, the program investigates opportunities for product conservation, processing, and marketing.

In the transition process from a centrally planned to a market economy the financial sector has a vitally important role to play. Nevertheless, transformation research has largely neglected rural finance and its link to the development of agriculture and the rural economy. This book intends to fill this gap. It addresses such questions as ‘how and in what sequence can rural finance be restructured’, ‘how can it support rural enterprise efficiency and help break the cycle of enterprise inefficiency, illiquidity and over-indebtedness’, ‘how can the typical constraints of uncertain land-ownership for financial institutions in the transformation process be overcome’, and ‘what type of institutional innovations are called for’. These issues are evaluated in the light of theory and empirically analysed for the country case Romania. The book consists of three parts. First, it discusses rural finance and transition from a theoretical perspective. The second part contains empirical research results relevant to the development of Romania’s rural sector. Thirdly, it formulates policy recommendations to overcome market and government failures in building an efficient rural financial market in transition countries.

Central to food security and agricultural growth are innovations. As land resources are becoming increasingly scarce, production growth has to come mainly from intensification and productivity increases, particularly of smallholders as the main food producers in developing countries. The innovation process involves generation and acceptance of sustainable innovations by farmers requiring effective agricultural research, a conducive agricultural policy framework and improved institutional and infrastructural conditions for innovation acceptance. This volume summarizes the large body of experiences gained and discussed during the Hohenheim symposium. It places particular emphasis on the discussion of case studies of successful and failed innovations. Learning from both, successes and failures, is part of a science-based innovation process.