Desire for Greener Land

No. of case studies
Relative level of wealth
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Cropping
management
Water
management
Cross-slope
barriers
Grazing land
management
SLM technology groups
Forest
management
very poor
poor
average
rich
very rich
DESIRE - WOCAT 2012
Figure 14: Relative level of wealth of the land users applying
the SLM technology.
No. of case studies
Off-farm income
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Cropping
management
Water
management
Cross-slope
barriers
Grazing land
management
SLM technology groups
less than 10% of all income
10–50% of all income
>50% of all income
be even higher if access to it was facilitated. Out-migration
might be one answer and is an issue observed in some of the
sites (e.g. Portugal).
Forest
management
DESIRE - WOCAT 2012
Figure 15: Off-farm income of the land users applying the
SLM technology.
Analysis of assessed SLM technologies and approaches across DESIRE sites DESIRE – WOCAT 2012
Production and socio-economic impacts
Improved production can be observed for almost all of the
technologies. This is important as it indicates that SLM technologies
in general are successful in increasing production,
and are, therefore, suitable to support increasing demands
for food, fodder and other products. Depending on the land
use type, the result is more crop yield increase, more fodder
or animal production or more wood production. Cross-slope
barriers seem to have the highest benefit in terms of production.
Still, in each technology group there are one or two
technologies with no increase in production, such as the two
no tillage of olive (and almond) orchards in Spain and Greece.
Their benefit is related to lower costs, rather than improved
production, and a net increase in farm income is still achieved.
Other technologies are not assessed regarding agricultural
production increase (such as the biogas example). A third of
all technologies reduce the risk of production failure, and
these are mainly found in the water management group.
Farm income is related, on the one hand, to the inputs (expenditures)
needed to apply the technology and, on the other, to
the increased production (see previous Figure 16). Increased
farm income, generated from improved land management
through the technology, was recorded in three-quarters of
the cases (excluding forest management technologies, for
which this analysis is not applicable). Both cross slope barri-
No. of case studies
Increased production (crop yield, fodder, animal and wood)
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Cropping
management
Water
management
Cross-slope
barriers
Grazing land
management
SLM technology groups
Forest
management
none / n.a.
little
medium
high
DESIRE - WOCAT 2012
Figure 16: Increased production across the SLM technology
groups.
Spain, Gudrun Svhwilch Cape Verde, Hanspeter Liniger
49