Rural Development Policies and Sustainable Land Use in the ...

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Foreword Promising ways of promoting sustainable development in less-favored areas have long been a focus of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Hillside areas are an important facet of less-favored areas because they often have limited biophysical potential and attract limited public investment. As a result, poverty, low agricultural productivity, and natural resource degradation tend to be interrelated problems in such areas. In Honduras, poverty is deep and widespread, and this is especially the case in the hillside areas— home to one-third of the country’s population. The majority of these people earn their living through agriculture, as either smallholders or farm laborers. Rural poverty in the hillsides results primarily from unequal asset distribution, low factor productivity, insufficient public investments in infrastructure and services, and vulnerability to natural and economic shocks. In this research report, authors Hans Jansen, John Pender, Amy Damon, and Rob Schipper generate important information for use by decisionmakers in assessing policy and public investment options targeted toward increasing agricultural productivity and household income in hillside areas, at the same time stimulating natural resource conservation. Based on detailed household- and plot-level survey data, they develop a quantitative livelihood approach and use it to assess the determinants and effects of household livelihood strategies and land management decisions in an integrated econometric framework. The authors also demonstrate how this framework can be used as a policy targeting tool, thus integrating the livelihood strategies literature with the policy targeting literature. Even though the results indicate that solutions to poverty in the rural hillside areas of Honduras are neither easy nor straightforward, the study confirms that agriculture should form an integral component of rural development strategies in these areas, where the assets held by many households are limited to unskilled labor and small tracts of owned or rented land. The results indicate that, in order to raise household incomes, public investment and policy programs addressing the hillside areas should focus on improved road infrastructure, broader land access, policies to reduce household size and dependency ratios, and the adoption of land management technologies—for example, through agricultural extension programs and land redistribution—to restore soil fertility. While investments in physical assets should be directed toward households that incorporate off-farm employment or coffee production into their livelihood strategies, agricultural training programs should target livestock producers. Joachim von Braun Director General, IFPRI viii
Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge the European Union for its financial support of this research and Wageningen University and Research Center (WUR), in particular the Development Economics Group and the Agricultural Economics Research Institute, for sponsoring the senior author’s time at IFPRI. We are grateful to Efraín Díaz and Jacqueline Chenier, former staff members of the National Program for Sustainable Rural Development (PRONADERS), for their invaluable assistance in the conceptual design of the study and their continued interest in its progress and results. Efraín and Jackie, without your help our research would not have been possible. Angel Rodríguez, another former staff member of PRONADERS, proved indispensable in undertaking the community-level aspect of our research, the results of which are reported elsewhere. We gratefully acknowledge the support by PRONADERS of the six in-country workshops that were part of the project on which this report is based. We thank Willem Wielemaker, retired soil scientist from WUR, for his help with the biophysical aspect of the household survey. Willem, you did a great deal more than we could have reasonably asked of you; we economists learned a lot from you, and you were great fun to be with in the field. We gratefully acknowledge Jordan Chamberlain from IFPRI and Sytze de Bruin from WUR for their competent help with the GIS work. We are thankful for the excellent collaboration with ESA Consultores in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, during the field work and construction of the database. Florencia, Alberto, Fidel, you were all great to work with. We are grateful to our field survey team for their enthusiasm and hard work under often challenging conditions. Last, but not least, we thank the many farmers and their families who gracefully participated in the study and showed us the true meaning of hospitality. ix
Page 1 and 2: Rural Development Policies and Sust
Page 3 and 4: Contents List of Tables iv List of
Page 5 and 6: TABLES v 5.6 Determinants of extern
Page 7: Boxes 1.1 Defining “Hillsides,”
Page 11: SUMMARY xi the adoption of sustaina
Page 14 and 15: 2 CHAPTER 1 Box 1.1 Defining “Hil
Page 16 and 17: 4 CHAPTER 1 will allow Honduras to
Page 18 and 19: 6 CHAPTER 1 In addition to providin
Page 20 and 21: 8 CHAPTER 1 econometric analysis to
Page 22 and 23: 10 CHAPTER 2 1998 and the coffee cr
Page 24 and 25: 12 CHAPTER 2 Box 2.1 Land Issues in
Page 26 and 27: 14 CHAPTER 2 Table 2.3 Yield of pri
Page 28 and 29: 16 CHAPTER 2 Table 2.7 Intersectora
Page 30 and 31: 18 CHAPTER 2 Figure 2.2 Terms of tr
Page 32 and 33: CHAPTER 3 Methods and Models In thi
Page 34 and 35: 22 CHAPTER 3 Figure 3.1 Sustainable
Page 36 and 37: 24 CHAPTER 3 financial organization
Page 38 and 39: 26 CHAPTER 3 decide the number of c
Page 40 and 41: 28 CHAPTER 3 The reduced form versi
Page 42 and 43: 30 CHAPTER 3 Table 3.1 Variables in
Page 44 and 45: 32 CHAPTER 3 of years of formal sch
Page 46 and 47: 34 CHAPTER 3 Key socioeconomic elem
Page 48 and 49: 36 CHAPTER 3 although we report the
Page 50 and 51: 38 CHAPTER 4 Table 4.1 Natural capi
Page 52 and 53: 40 CHAPTER 4 Box 4.1 Remittances Re
Page 54 and 55: 42 CHAPTER 4 Table 4.6 Access to pu
Page 56 and 57: 44 CHAPTER 4 strategy (clusters 1 a
Page 58 and 59:
Table 4.8 Mean household net income
Page 60 and 61:
48 CHAPTER 4 Table 4.9 Summary stat
Page 62 and 63:
50 CHAPTER 4 Box 4.2 Gender in the
Page 64 and 65:
52 CHAPTER 5 The socioeconomic expl
Page 66 and 67:
54 CHAPTER 5 explanatory variables
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56 CHAPTER 5 technology training) a
Page 70 and 71:
58 CHAPTER 5 Table 5.3 Determinants
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Page 74 and 75:
62 CHAPTER 5 the basic grains/lives
Page 76 and 77:
64 CHAPTER 5 Table 5.5—Continued
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66 CHAPTER 5 ambiguous effects, dep
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Page 82 and 83:
70 CHAPTER 5 more livestock focus m
Page 84 and 85:
Page 86 and 87:
74 CHAPTER 5 Geographic determinant
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Page 90 and 91:
Page 92 and 93:
80 CHAPTER 5 when they purchase it
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82 CHAPTER 5 Table 5.10 Summary of
Page 96 and 97:
84 CHAPTER 5 able to compensate for
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86 CHAPTER 5 On the other hand, edu
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88 CHAPTER 5 and wage labor. Nevert
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90 CHAPTER 5 productivity. 62 Incre
Page 104 and 105:
CHAPTER 6 Summary of Findings, Conc
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94 CHAPTER 6 zero/minimum tillage,
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96 CHAPTER 6 Develop and promote yi
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98 REFERENCES Boucher, S., B. Barha
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100 REFERENCES Hornby, A. S. 1974.
Page 114 and 115:
102 REFERENCES Pino, H. N., P. Jim
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