Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Failure of one crop year may result in the family starving. Living under such a seri-
ous threat of destruction most often produces a very cautious decision maker. Unless
new production systems can produce short-term production benefits in the form of
increased productivity, subsistence farmers will not adopt conservation production
systems.
Subsistence farmers will adopt labor-intensive production systems if labor is avail-
able. Unfortunately, many areas of the Andean Mountains no longer have a surplus of
labor because many young people have migrated to the cities, seeking better employ-
ment opportunities. Conservation programs that rely heavily on low-technology and
high-labor approaches will find it more difficult to motivate land managers to adopt
because local labor no longer exists to implement such conservation production systems.
Land tenure rights alone will not strongly influence the adoption of conservation
technologies and/or techniques within the Andean Mountains. Subsistence farm-
ers may possess property rights and still not have sufficient human and economic
resources to implement new conservation production systems. Land tenure will
affect the orientation of potential adopters if they have the resources to invest in
conservation efforts because such rights guarantee that the owner can claim the long-
term benefits associated with making conservation investments in their land.
Downstream costs associated with erosion of cropland are ignored in the Andean
Mountains. Off-site damages associated with food and fiber production are basi-
cally ignored because institutional structures do not exist to address the issue.
Conservation policies are seldom in existence, and when they do exist, there are
no institutional structures in place to enforce such policies. Conservation policies
without enforcement capabilities are basically useless tools for implementing soil
and water conservation efforts.
Alwang and Sowell (2010) note that conservation change agents must take into
consideration several things when developing a strategy for bringing about adoption
of soil and water conservation among subsistence farmers. They assert that conserva-
tion efforts must produce positive economic results quickly and that attention should
be focused on conservation systems that are appropriate for small-scale agriculture.
Large-scale/technology-intensive farm operations do not exist in subsistence farm
production areas in the Andean Mountains. Soil and water conservation production
systems appropriate for large farm operations will not be relevant to small farming
units. The authors strongly suggest that short-term subsidies to encourage adoption
of conservation production systems should be de-emphasized when working with
subsistence farmers in favor of investments in long-term solutions to existing poverty
conditions. Unless poverty conditions are reduced, soil conservation will continue
unabated.
Considerable research attention has been focused on the adoption of soil and
water conservation production systems within Central America because soil ero-
sion has severely degraded soil and water resources. The primary cause of erosion
is the extensive use of traditional agricultural techniques by subsistence farmers.
As subsistence agriculture was extended into higher elevations, soil loss due to ero-
sion increased. Soil erosion has reduced agricultural productivity and has created
extensive environmental problems so significant that several national governments
