Economic impacts of conservation farming in a marginal environment: the case of ‘Landcare’ in the Philippines

In the marginal, upland regions of the Philippines, soil erosion and poverty are significant problems. The Landcare Programme has sought to address these twin problems. We assess the economic impacts of the Landcare Programme in the Province of Bohol. We first explore whether the adoption of Landcare practices, particularly those of contour farming and tree planting, in a highly degraded landscape has resulted in improved livelihood outcomes for upland farming families. Second, we analyse the potential for the piecemeal adoption of these measures to deliver tangible benefits at the watershed scale. Finally, using a benefit–cost approach, these outcomes are compared with the costs of research and extension projects that have helped achieve them. We conclude that the net economic impact of the Landcare Programme in Bohol is positive, with the primary beneficiaries being the individual households that adopt the Landcare practices. These benefits are largely generated by productive opportunities that arise once the hillsides have been stabilized. Although the downstream impacts of land-use changes associated with the Landcare Programme are positive, they are of marginal economic importance. Hence, the focus and primary justification of the Landcare Programme should be on improving the productivity and livelihoods of upland farming households.     

Land degradation in the Lao PDR: Discourses and policy

While there is an important body of research on environmental discourses and policy in Southeast Asia, the situation in the Lao PDR remains understudied. This paper builds on debates related to environmental change and knowledge production and examines the socio-political construction of the current mainstream discourse on land degradation in Laos. It highlights that, despite significant uncertainties as regard the extent and severity of the issue, land degradation in the uplands is represented by the Laotian authorities and many of their development partners as a major and imminent threat to the development of the country. The paper also examines the way this perspective is translated into policies specifically aimed at resolving the upland issue and proposes an alternative reading of this process where mainstream discourse and associated policy appear partly shaped by the subjectivities and political economic projects of Laos’ policy-makers. Finally, drawing on the case of Laos, the paper provides a critical reflection on conventional approaches to assessing socio-environmental issues and defining policy interventions.     

The direct use value of municipal commonage goods and services to urban households in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

To redress past racial discrepancies in ownership and tenure, the ANC government of South Africa initiated programmes to make land accessible to the previously disadvantaged. A key component of the national land reform programme was the provision of commonage lands to urban municipalities for use by the urban poor. However, there has been no assessment of the contribution that urban commonage makes to previously disadvantaged households. This study assessed the economic benefits of the commonage programme to local households, through an in-depth survey of 90 households across three small towns in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. We examined the marketed and non-marketed consumptive direct-use values of land-based livelihoods on commonage, calculated via the ‘own reported values’ approach. The results indicate that a proportion of South Africa's urban population rely to some degree on municipal commonage for part of their livelihoods. Commonage contributions to total livelihood incomes ranged between 14 and 20%. If the contributions from commonage were excluded, the incomes of over 10% of households in each study town would drop below the poverty line. Overall, the value of harvests from commonage was worth over R1 000 (US$ 142) per hectare per year and over R4.7 million (US$ 0.68 million) per commonage per year. However, the extent and nature of use and reliance was not uniform among households, so that we developed a typology of commonage users, with four types being identified. However, rapidly growing urban populations and high levels of poverty potentially threaten the sustainability of commonage resource use. Yet the national land reform programme focuses largely on the transfer of land to municipalities and not on sustainable management. Municipalities, in turn, invest relatively little in commonage management, and the little they do is focussed on livestock production. Non-timber forest products are not considered at all, even though this study shows that they are a vital resource for the urban poor, notably for energy and construction materials.     

LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION POLICIES AND MEAT PROCESSING MARGINS: THE CASE OF NEW ZEALAND, 1967-1988*

The New Zealand export meat industry has been through a considerable number of changes in the 1980s. The deregulation of export slaughter facilities, Supplementary Minimum Prices, Producer Board intervention, declining livestock numbers and domestic cost pressures have all affected the performance of the domestically based processing sector. Major changes in market access and demand have influenced off-shore marketing operations, particularly for sheepmeats. Additionally, there has been a change in the type of meat exported with a greater proportion of further processed product shipped in recent years. As an example of the impact of these developments on livestock producers, the producer share of the United Kingdom wholesale market return for a representative prime lamb carcase has fallen from 40 per cent in 1978 to 25 per cent in 1988. In this article the pattern of intervention in the New Zealand pastoral meat industries from the mid-1960s is detailed, emphasising the different environments of the beef and sheepmeat enterprises. Then the principal factors influencing domestic processing margins for these products are empirically examined. Alternative model specifications and alternative estimation techniques are compared and contrasted. The results of these analyses are discussed in terms of the historical patterns of assistance and structural change, and in terms of current rationalisation pressures on the meat processing sector.     

Market structure and the demand for veterinary services in India

The livestock sector is emerging as one of the fastest growing agricultural sub‐sectors in India and the expectations are that this growth could further accelerate due to growing incomes and the high income elasticity of demand for livestock products. Given the size and relatively equitable distribution of livestock in India, this presents an excellent opportunity for the country to boost rural incomes and accelerate the pace of poverty reduction. But, successful capitalisation of such opportunities requires a policy regime that facilitates growth in productivity at the farm level as well as in the processing sector. The productive potential of animals depends crucially on the quality of nutrition, genetic material and the animal health system, and on all these counts, India has a poor record. The public sector continues to be the primary provider of veterinary services, and the deteriorating fiscal situation of most state governments is making it extremely difficult to either expand the reach of these services or improve the quality of service delivery. Although, on efficiency grounds, there is good rationale for commercialised delivery of these services, serious concerns prevail in India about the equity implications of private sector delivery or full cost recovery within the government system. Evaluation of the desirability of user fees or private delivery of livestock services requires an understanding of the factors influencing the demand for these services. This paper examines the nature of demand for veterinary services in three states of India and presents first estimates of demand elasticities for veterinary services. The results indicate that price is not an important determinant of the decision to use these services. Also, practically no variation is found in price elasticities across income groups. These results suggest that the fears of sharp declines in the use of these services as a result of full cost recovery and/or private sector delivery are unfounded.     

Access to markets,weather risk,and livestock production decisions: Evidence from Ethiopia

Despite several studies showing the effect of access to markets and weather conditions on crop production, we know quite little on whether and how livestock production systems respond to variation in weather risk and access to markets. In this paper, we study whether and how livestock production responds to (access to) markets and varying weather risk. We also explore whether such responses vary across livelihood zones and livestock production systems. We study these research questions using households’ livestock production, ownership, and marketing decisions of households in Ethiopia. We find that households living close to markets are more likely to engage in market-oriented livestock production and use modern livestock inputs. We also find that households exposed to more unpredictable weather are less likely to engage in livestock production for markets, rather they are more likely to engage in livestock production for precautionary savings and insurance. Furthermore, greater rainfall uncertainty influences livestock portfolio allocation toward those which can be easily liquidated while also discouraging investment in modern livestock inputs. However, these responses and patterns vary across livelihood zones and production systems; most of these stylized responses and impacts are more pronounced and significant in the arid and semi-arid lands of Ethiopia, where livestock herding remains a dominant source of livelihood. Those households relying only on livestock production seem more sensitive and responsive to weather risk and weather shocks. The heterogeneity in responses and impacts of weather risk among farming systems and livelihoods highlights the need for more tailored livestock sector policies and interventions.     

The Dynamics of Commoditization in a Vietnamese Uplands Village, 1980–2000

Commodity markets have become key forces transforming upland livelihoods, social relations and landscapes in Vietnam and throughout Southeast Asia. This paper examines the processes of market formation and their effects on local livelihoods and social relations in a village of Vietnam's north-western uplands. The results indicate that villagers' reactions to new opportunities arising from decollectivization and market liberalization wove them into an increasingly intricate 'commodity web'. Differences among households widened as households with an initial advantage accumulated further advantages. Yet the relations governing access to land and product markets also provided a floor of subsistence for the disadvantaged. The findings demonstrate the need to interrogate commodity markets, investigate the practices and relations constituting them, and analyse how they distribute income and risks among the actors involved. The nature of commodity markets, together with the relations governing access to productive resources, influences processes of social differentiation in the uplands.     

Livestock development planning in Uganda: Identification of areas of opportunity and challenge

Livestock are an important element of the livelihoods of many Ugandan households, and considerable efforts at economic development by the government of Uganda have focused on the livestock sector. However, these development efforts have suffered due to a lack of detailed data on the distribution of livestock in Uganda to guide the targeting of such programs. In this paper, we use data from the 2008 National Livestock Census to develop a better understanding of where in Uganda there might be potential for significant investment to intensify the production of livestock and, conversely, where there are important challenges that need to be addressed, such as conflicts between human populations and livestock. This analysis is done by developing a quantitative model to predict mean livestock stocking rates at sub-county level (n = 929) that uses population density, agroecological factors, and market access as explanatory variables. A mapping of model residuals approach is then used to identify areas in Uganda that are relatively understocked and those that are potentially overstocked. This information is used to suggest approaches to livestock development in both types of areas.     

Aid to Agriculture, Growth and Poverty Reduction

Agriculture and rural growth promotion show a recent 'comeback' in development cooperation, but action on the ground so far is not sufficient. After years of neglect, policy makers have recognized that poverty reduction in many low income countries can only be achieved if development efforts are clearly focused on the sector which employs most of the poor, and the space where most of the poor live. The importance of agricultural growth was amply demonstrated during the economic transformation of Asia. Forty years ago, Asia was a continent of widespread poverty. Today, most Asian countries are experiencing significant growth and poverty reduction. Rapid growth in productivity in the small-farm sector helped drive this process. Sub-Saharan Africa, however, failed to achieve rapid agricultural growth and remains mired in poverty and hunger. If Africa is to halve poverty by 2015 in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), agriculture will need to maintain an annual growth rate of 6 per cent between 2000 and 2015. China's experience from 1978 to 1984 shows such growth is possible. Achieving the desired rapid rates of growth in Africa will require coherent policies by governments and donors, a substantial investment of public resources in rural infrastructure and access to agricultural technology, and significant improvement in national governance.     

Crisis Behind Closed Doors: Global Food Crisis and Local Hunger

The high and volatile food prices in 2007–8 triggered estimates of massive increases in poverty and hunger. However, hunger and volatile food prices have long been a feature of developing economies. This paper examines the impact of high global food prices on domestic terms‐of‐trade, food consumption and child undernutrition in the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Liberia and Sierra Leone, comparing findings with the impacts of ‘seasonality’. As high international food prices permeated domestic markets, households in all the case study areas resorted to coping strategies common in the annual hunger season. Though acute malnutrition has not risen as consistently as in a seasonal hunger crisis, reduced micronutrient intake threatens to have severe long‐term consequences for health and poverty reduction. The similar impacts of seasonal and global food price rises on households provide an opportunity to design appropriate interventions to protect livelihoods.     

Livelihood roles of cattle and prospects for alternative land uses at the wildlife/livestock interface in South Africa

The emergence of wildlife ranching as an alternative land use option to agriculture, in Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs), has cast renewed interest on the role of cattle farming in rural livelihoods in areas close to wildlife parks. This study analysed the contribution of cattle to livelihoods and relationships between cattle and potential wildlife land uses in rural areas near Kruger National Park. Data were collected through household surveys, key informant interviews and community workshops. About 11% of households studied owned cattle, and cattle income constituted 29% of total household income. Benefits from cattle were also derived by households without cattle. About 71% of households had at least three sources of income, reflecting diversity of livelihoods. Wildlife related land uses were perceived by some households as threatening cattle production, whilst others viewed them as opportunities for alternative livelihoods. We conclude that cattle production has important livelihood roles, but is not sufficient as a driver of economic development in these areas. Incentives to encourage diversification of livelihoods at the wildlife/livestock interface, with possibilities for rural communities to explore wildlife based land uses should be put in place. In addition, land use policy and planning in such areas should focus on creating institutional mechanisms through which programmes integrating conservation and rural development goals can benefit rural communities.     

扶贫开发问题研究——以阳江市为例

2009年至今,广东省扶贫开发工作取得了很大的成绩,但也存在一些问题。本文以阳江市为例对扶贫开发进行研究,希望对全省扶贫开发工作有所启示。阳江市属于广东省欠发达地区,虽然扶贫开发方面做了不少工作,贫困村面貌有所改善,有不少贫困户也开始脱贫,但贫困问题依然比较严重。针对存在的一些问题,作者提出提高社会保障力度、调节扶贫政策细则、完善扶贫瞄准机制、提高贫困农民生产能力、完善社会救助体系、建立可持续生计机制等对策建议。     

Importing High Food Prices by Exporting: Rice Prices in Lao PDR

Lao PDR has extensive export controls on its staple food, glutinous rice, which keep domestic prices low relative to international prices. Using price, harvest, and export data this paper analyses how glutinous rice prices in Laos PDR are related to those in its trading partners, Thailand and Vietnam. We find that rice prices in Lao PDR are more likely to rise following a good harvest year than a bad or a normal year. This is consistent with export controls being relaxed after good harvests, leading to an increase in exports early in the season and rising prices later as stocks are depleted. There is thus a case for removal of trade restrictions since they give rise to price spikes while keeping the long‐term price of glutinous rice low, and thereby hinder increases in income from agriculture. However, since high rice prices are likely to affect the poor negatively in the short to medium term, a combination of an export tax and cash transfers is recommended during the transition period. Although this is a case study of Lao PDR, the findings may equally apply to other developing countries that export their staple food.     

Regional suitability for agricultural intensification: a spatial analysis of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania

Global food production will need to increase by 70–110% to meet the growing demand by 2050. Production per capita remains at 1960 levels in Africa while the agriculture sector accounts for 65% of full-time employment and 61% of rural households in Sub-Saharan Africa depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Globally there is new focus on increasing agricultural investments in Africa. There is a need, however, for understanding regional factors that influence the outcome of agricultural intensification beyond the landscape scale and below the global scale. This paper provides a framework for considering socioeconomic and environmental factors in evaluating suitability for agricultural intensification at the regional scale. The method employs a spatially explicit multi-criteria evaluation based on freely available data that can be applied in any geography. The focus is on the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania which has an area greater than 28 million hectares. These results indicate that the area considered most suitable for agricultural investment is different when considering multiple criteria compared to considering only potential yield. This approach is important for government planners, funding partners, and development agencies who seek sustainable agricultural intensification in Africa and elsewhere.     

Interaction between livestock and feeds policies: evidence from Southeast Asia

Consumption of livestock products in Southeast Asia could continue to increase rapidly, as has been the case in Northeast Asia. The extent to which domestic producers may respond to these demand developments will be influenced by government interventions in both livestock product and feeds markets. The paper analyses the net contribution of livestock product and feed price distortions on the effective rate of protection, and whether intervention in the commodity market is augmented or offset by intervention in the feeds market. While policy-induced distortions were found to exist in the livestock sectors of Thailand and Malaysia, especially in beef and dairy production, the contribution of feeds policies to these distortions was minimal. In contrast implicit taxes on feeds were high in Indonesia and the Philippines. In the latter, support on product prices was sufficient to more than offset the tax on feeds so that effective protection remained positive. But in Indonesia both livestock and feeds policies worked to provide disincentives to livestock production. It is concluded that livestock and feeds policies should be formulated with regard to objectives and priorities within both sectors. This could require that greater emphasis be placed on feeds sector assistance policies that do not affect the price of feeds.     

Introduction to the special issue on the role of nonfarm income in poverty reduction: evidence from Asia and East Africa

In this special issue, we present seven studies that collectively attempt to investigate the role of non‐farm income in long‐term and short‐term poverty reduction in Asia and Africa. The first four studies out of the seven use long‐term panel data over two decades in the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India. These studies show drastic increases in non‐farm income shares and corresponding declines in poverty levels over time, especially in the Philippines and Thailand. Education levels of household members and returns to education also increased significantly in these countries. The remaining three studies use cross‐sectional and short‐term panel data from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. These African studies show high proportions of poor households and low shares of non‐farm income that are somewhat comparable to the situation in the 1980s described in the Asian studies. Without the Green Revolution that provided stable farm income and potential financial resources to invest in children' education in Asia, it is not clear if African farm households can follow the Asian examples.     

Meat and milk self-sufficiency in Asia: forecast trends and implications

Recent structural changes in dietary patterns in Asia resulting from economic development are placing increasing pressure on the existing production systems in the region-particularly those systems producing ruminant meat, non-ruminant meat and milk. This has significant policy implications for the countries in the region in terms of self-sufficiency goals in these commodities and the associated inter-and intra-regional trade opportunities in the future. Forecasts of ruminant meat, non-ruminant meat and milk production and consumption for selected Asian countries between the years 2000 and 2010 revealed the following: China, Pakistan and Viet Nam are likely to be self-sufficient with respect to ruminant meat; Malaysia is likely to continue to be a net importer of ruminant meat; India and Malaysia will be more than self-sufficient with respect to non-runvinant meat with the converse being true for Pakistan; and India, Laos and Pakistan will be self-sufficient with respect to milk production with the possibility of Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia becoming self-sufficient if the current trends continue. Structural changes in the early 1980s generally resulted in higher average annual growth rates of production-particularly in non-ruminant meat production. Thus forecasts of ruminant meat production and consumption by 2000 using the medium-term average annual growth rates for production present a more favourable outcome in terms of self-sufficiency for countries such as Bangladesh, the Philippines and Viet Nam but a less favourable outcome for countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos and India. Similar forecasts for non-ruminant meat indicated an improvement in the long-term non-ruminant self-sufficiency estimates for most cases-particularly for Bangladesh, China and Cambodia. Intensification and commercialisation of meat production systems have increased meat self-sufficiency in a number of countries but often at the expense of grain self-sufficiency. Given these trends, the impact of trade liberalisation measures on livestock production in the region and inter-and intra-regional trade of livestock commodities and grain is likely to be significant.     

The impact of protected areas on the rural households’ incomes in Ethiopia

Protected areas are cornerstones for biodiversity conservation, yet they can be controversial because of their potential impact on the livelihoods of local people due to restrictions on agricultural land use and the extractive use of natural resources. This study evaluates the impact of PAs on households’ livelihoods, as measured by total household income (THI) and livestock income (LI). We use a survey and a quasi-experimental design to gather socioeconomic and biophysical data from households living within, adjacent to and outside three national parks (NPs) in Ethiopia and employ matching methods to isolate the impact of NPs. Our findings suggest that there is no evidence that the establishment of NPs adversely affects local livelihoods. Instead, we find that households within and in adjacent areas to NPs have higher incomes compared to those living outside. Understanding the heterogeneity of the effect of NPs on local livelihoods can help in designing well-targeted policy interventions that improve conservation goals while also addressing livelihood concerns of resource-dependent local communities.     

Cashing in or driving development? Cross-border traders and maize contract farming in northeast Laos

Contract farming is receiving renewed attention in research and policy in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia, as countries continue to undergo varied agrarian transitions and agri-food production has become increasingly regionalized. In northeast Laos, previously isolated upland communities have experienced rapid transformations resulting from contract production of hybrid maize, mainly for industrial feed processing and livestock in Vietnam. Based on extensive qualitative fieldwork in the Lao-Vietnamese borderlands, this article explores the quasi-“developmental” functions assumed by cross-border traders, in the context of unfulfilled rural policy objectives, in which these “micro-investors” provide informal extension and infrastructure to enable agricultural commercialization. The article examines the extent to which this dynamic is adequately captured by notions of patronage, or whether subtle mutual dependencies are at work, as livelihoods are rebalanced between subsistence and commodity crops in remote border landscapes.