Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
because of the following reasons: level of poverty that exists, lack of institutional
structures to provide educational opportunities, lack of educational infrastruc-
ture to provide needed technical skills to implement conservation production
systems, lack of institutional structures to generate new knowledge about conser-
vation issues, lack of institutional structures to deliver newly discovered scientific
knowledge about conservation, lack of access to conservation technologies and
techniques, lack of economic institutions to provide needed credit to low-income
farmers, lack of access to foreign and domestic markets to motivate land managers
to emphasize more efficient and productive agricultural systems, lack of transpor-
tation systems to access foreign and domestic markets, lack of dependable insti-
tutional structures to deliver production inputs at the local level, lack of access to
newly created biotechnology, and lack of institutional structures to put public poli-
cies in place that will facilitate conservation efforts within the countries. Unless
institutional structures are established in lesser-scale societies to address these
issues, it is highly probable that subsistence farmers will continue using traditional
production systems that will degrade land and water resources until future agricul-
tural productivity is severely threatened.
Napier (2013) posits that the dire predictions made by El-Swaify and Marten
(2010) and Oldeman et al. (1991) about the consequences of continued degradation
of land and water resources in lesser-scale societies will be realized if expectations
about the impacts of global warming on future agricultural productivity are shown
to be valid. While farmers within high-scale societies will probably be able to adapt
production systems to significantly nullify the effects of increasing global tempera-
ture owing to their access to technology-intensive production systems and educa-
tional structures, farm managers in lesser-scale societies will not have access to such
resources and will not be able to adapt to changing socioenvironmental conditions.
It is also highly likely that global warming will result in more frequent and intense
storm events. If this prediction is shown to be true, land operators in lesser-scale
societies who have not incorporated erosion control techniques into their farm pro-
duction systems will observe much greater erosion and subsequent degradation of
their land resources over time.
15.3.4 s
oil
and
W
ater
c
onservation
s
tudies
By
g
eographic
r
egion
Adoption of soil and water conservation production systems has been examined in
a host of lesser-scale societies. This literature is examined in the context of the geo-
graphical location of the studies.
15.3.4.1 Soil Conservation in the Tropics
El-Swaify and Marten (2010) discuss the nature of soil erosion and land degrada-
tion within the tropics. The authors note that soil erosion is particularly problematic
between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn due to climatic conditions of the region
and the high incidence of poverty that adversely affects resident populations. Many
of the 160 countries within this geographic region of the planet are populated by sub-
sistence farmers who operate very small land holdings. Most of the land operators in
the tropics are very poor and have few resources to invest in alternative production
