The challenge of HIV/AIDS: Where does agroforestry fit in? - World ...

Chapter 8: Policies for improved land management in smallholder agriculture73productivity shows signs of weakening,a farmer may not attribute this to erodedresources. In other cases, a farmer mayrealize that the resource base is declining inquality, but it does not yet have a measurableimpact on productivity. So, for example,cumulative sheet erosion may be takingplace, but not be posing a ‘problem’ ondeeper soils.Lack of importance of the naturalresource or its problem. There are severalreasons why smallholders who can observea natural resource problem may feel that itis unimportant. Firstly, it may be occurringin a small or insignificant area, such as aremote corner of the farm. Secondly, eventhough the magnitude may be significant,a rural household may place more attentionon livelihoods that do not depend on thedegrading resource, for example, if thehousehold derives more of its income fromservices, processing, or wage employment,its priorities for investment will not be onfarming natural resources. Thirdly, lack ofappreciation of the natural resource orproblem may be due to a lack of awarenessor education, or due to historical or culturalfactors. For example, immigrants may notattach a high value to tree resources becausethey lack awareness of their potentialvalues.Lack of willingness to invest in theresource. Willingness does not referto capacity, but rather one’s interest ininvesting. This hinges significantly onsmallholders’ property rights and timehorizons. For example, if a farmer cannotgain long-term rights to land, there is littleincentive to make investments in that land,irrespective of the potential effectiveness ofthe investment. Furthermore, householdsthat rent land, or female farmers who donot control the benefits from investmentsthey make, are also unlikely to be willingto invest time and effort on improvements.In terms of time, some smallholders mayhave very short time horizons because ofhigh risk aversion or extreme poverty, and insuch cases will not even consider a numberof types of investments. In particular, thediscount rates of the poor are very high dueto immediate survival needs; they thereforesteeply discount benefits that may accruefrom long-term investment.Lack of capacity to invest in theresource. Some households mayrecognize a problem and have thepotential to benefit from investments tosolve it, but simply cannot assemble theresources required to make the investment.Setting aside land for permanent cover orlong fallows is not attractive to householdswith very small farms. Often, labourshortages prevent significant soil andwater conservation investments from beingundertaken, especially in areas ravagedby malaria or HIV/AIDS. But perhaps themost serious constraint is lack of financialcapital, since in theory households withcash can obtain labour or other resourcesneeded for investment.Lack of incentives to invest in theresource. In this situation, farmers mayhave access to the resources required tomake investments in natural resources,but the payoff from doing so appears tobe unattractive. This can be a result ofthe (in)effectiveness of the investment.For instance, few profitable investmentsmay be available in the more arid orsandy environments. But incentives arealso highly related to prices, access toinputs and markets for outputs. Whereoutput markets are lacking, farmers arediscouraged from purchasing inputs. Evenwhere markets exist, in many areas of ruralAfrica the ratio of farmgate input costs tooutput prices is so high as to discourage allbut the minimum of investment.Lack of information and supportservices to implement investments.While some types of investments arestraightforward, others may require adegree of technical knowledge. Withoutbasic training, farmers may not fullyunderstand how and why certain typesof investments will work. Likewise, sometypes of investment require materials (e.g.shovels or seedling pouches) that maynot normally be available locally. Moresignificant public investment to supportimproved land management is clearly vitalfor impoverished rural areas so that thistype of vicious circle of poverty and landdegradation can be broken.Many of these circumstances may be feltat the household level, but are actually affectedby larger-scale cultural, economicand political factors. Some of these are:• lack of crop/agriculture insurance toprotect against climatic risk;• almost complete absence of rural creditsystems;• weak healthcare systems, including lowavailability of medicines;• weak extension systems in terms of personnel,transportation and motivation;• poor infrastructure and markets leadingto unattractive prices for outputs andinputs; and• poor or non-existent rights to land forwomen, migrants, settler communitieson state land and in a variety of othersituations.Some of these large-scale factors stem frommarket or even social failures, but all ofthem are driven by policy and are thereforealso policy failures.