Despite the substantial increases in food production and rural income resulting from the Green Revolution, millions of people in the developing world still live in abject poverty. Production gains in some countries have been nullified by population growth, and the increases that have been achieved through Green Revolution techniques have occurred mainly on well-watered land. It is becoming clear that in many countries further increases in food production will depend upon better use of less fertile lands and limited water supplies.

The Foundation's activities to improve water management focus on innovative field-based projects that experiment with alternative ways to ensure more efficient and equitable distribution of water. Also assisted are programs aimed at making better use of underutilized and degraded lands for food, fuel, and fodder production.

One method of cultivation especially suited for marginal and erosion-prone lands is agroforestry. In this system, trees and bushes are combined with crops and sometimes livestock on the same land. Nutrients are recycled more efficiently, soil erosion is arrested, and rainfall absorption improved. Moreover, the total value of food, fuel, and fodder produced may easily exceed what could be earned if the land were planted only with food crops.

Although agroforestry has long played an important role in the agriculture of many less developed countries, a paucity of scientific research on the most efficient tree-crop combinations and a shortage of extension personnel trained in the technology have kept it from being adopted more widely. Several grants this year were aimed at intensifying work on agroforestry and related land-use systems in Africa, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

The International Council for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) in Kenya received funds for the training of African agroforestry specialists and for a study of degraded common lands in Kenya. As the leading international research center in agroforestry, ICRAF focuses on developing better land-use systems in countries where the destruction of forests is damaging ecosystems that depend on woodlands to maintain watersheds, to restore fertility, and to check erosion.

In India, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) was granted $220,000 to develop a research methodology for narrowing the large number of potential tree-crop combinations that might be grown in the semi-arid tropics. A related grant went to the Bharatiya Agro-Industries Foundation for the training of extension agents and poor farmers in the techniques of tree farming.

Environmental deterioration of India's Himalayan foothills has become so severe that many poor farmers have been forced to move to the plains and cities, leaving behind women and children. Funds were provided to the Central Himalayan Environment Association for an action-research project to improve the livelihood of these impoverished hill dwellers. The association is working with village organizations to develop projects in livestock, fisheries, agroforestry, and small-scale irrigation.

Better land management is also a national priority in Indonesia, where tropical rain forests are being rapidly depleted as poor farmers cut down trees to plant crops, causing massive soil erosion and destroying the lands' productive potential. To help develop more effective forest management policies, a grant was made to the Indonesian government's State Forestry Commission for study of the way upland farmers use forest lands and how this use is influenced by government policies. The Tengko Situru Foundation, an Indonesian organization that works with poor