Human Dimensions That Drive Soil Degradation - Principles of Sustainable Soil Management in Agroecosystems - page 176

Francesco Di Castri (2000, 324) includes the following changes in the reach and
scope of this economic shift:
the shift from protectionism, centralized planning, and state-dominated economies
to freer trade, freer markets, and privatization; from local to national scale economic
activities to globalization characterized by increased international flows of capital,
information, and goods; from industrial concentration in a few sites and countries to
diffusion over space throughout the world of productive activities; and from rather
strict dependence of development on local natural resources to much larger depen-
dence on human culture (technology, infrastructure, and institutions).
Although some countries are still in the process of making these transitions, while
others are fully integrated into a globalized, liberalized, and free market economy, it
has been argued that the current global economic milieu is a major underlying cause
of environmental degradation worldwide, especially in developing countries (Pearce
1998).
Globalization of markets creates a greater disconnect between the sources of
demand and the location of production that occurs when a region becomes incorpo-
rated into the world economy. The loss of this connection is associated with rapid
land-use changes through new market cultivation leading to the intensification and
specialization of plant and livestock operations (Lambin et al. 2001). This shift in
agricultural practices leads to increased exploitation of water resources and, in turn,
soil salinization and desertification (Duraiappah 1998).
The formation of international free trade agreements such as the NAFTA, GATT,
and the WTO reduces trade tariffs and creates market competition from agricultural
imports (McMichael 2003). This competition forces farmers to “scale up” their agri-
cultural operations to produce commodities that can compete in the global market,
or else miss out on the economic benefits of industrialization (Reardon and Barrett
2008). Additionally, interventionist economic development agendas led by states,
donors, or nongovernmental organizations on the world stage pursue agricultural
intensification as a means of poverty alleviation through the promotion of agricul-
tural specialization and transitions to export-oriented crops (Lambin et al. 2000).
Globalization exhibits strong interaction effects with poverty. Agricultural small-
holders in developing countries are particularly sensitive to the price shocks driven
by economic globalization, including the emergence or international reorganiza-
tion of processing industries, loss of traditional export markets, competition from
imported substitutes, and exposure to global market fluctuations. Thus, poor farmers
with limited access to land tenure, capital, credit, and technologically advanced agri-
cultural inputs may counter these economic impacts by abandoning exhausted soils
for untouched, nutrient-replete sites (Barbier 2000).
Globalization can also interact with government policies to increase soil degra-
dation. Economic liberalization policies can increase the productivity and export
orientation of agriculture by influencing both agricultural input and output prices.
State policies reduce the price of export commodities through subsidies that help
those commodities compete on the global market, while simultaneously decreas-
ing subsidies to inputs, such as fertilizers (McMichael 2003). Thus, a drop in the
ratio of economic return on production to cost of inputs, combined with limited