Rural Poverty, Income Shocks, And Land Management: An Analysis Of The Linkages In El Salvador
Data collected in surveys of more than 700 Salvadoran households carried out in 1996 and 1998 are used in an econometric analysis of linkages between land and labor use. Particular emphasis is offered on how poor households allocated labor resources in response to the El Nino weather phenomenon of 1997. Implications for resource conservation are offered.
Natural resource degradation effects of poverty and population growth are largely policy-induced: the case of Colombia
ABSTRACT The sustainability of natural resource use is influenced by population pressure, but this exercises a much less critical impact than the overall policy framework. In Colombia, various agricultural and other policies whose effect is to constrain the poor's access to land encourage environmental degradation. A case is made in favour of the new land reform process that Colombia is launching.
Economic values and incentives affecting soil and water conservation in developing countries
Soil is an essential input to farming. This is especially true in the poorest countries, where agricultural production is crucial to development, the livelihoods of the majority of the population depend on the primary sector, and non-labor inputs in agriculture are negligible. And yet agricultural land use in these countries often results in the degradation of natural soil fertility and reduced productivity. Soil degradation under farming also inflicts off-site costs, through the processes of erosion, sedimentation, and leaching.

The on- and off-site impacts of soil degradation are part of the social cost of agricultural production in developing countries. However, these costs are routinely neglected by farmers and public planners, due to market and policy failures that mask the full cost of degradation to society. An important task for policy analysts and decision-makers is to identify the underlying causes of excessive soil degradation, to evaluate their economic significance, and to create incentives for less destructive land-use practices. Appropriate policies can help by making the full costs and benefits of alternative land-use practices more apparent to land users. This paper addresses these issues by discussing the various economic factors that influence land degradation in developing countries …