Adoption of Contour Hedgerows by Upland Farmers in the Philippines: an Economic Analysis ----•=-.,•� �=���•,,,,,.W�=,••Mo,.�• Ma
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Adoption of Contour Hedgerows by Upland Farmers in the Philippines: An Economic Analysis ----•=-.,•� �=���•,,,,,.w�=,••mo,.�• Ma. Lucila A. Lapar, Sushil Pandey, and Herman Waibel IRRI lNrERNATIONAL RICE RESEARCH lNSTITIJTE Contents Introduction 1 The contour hedgerow technology 2 A microeconomic model of soil conservation 4 The nature of the production system and soil conservation S Intensification, property rights, and soil conservation 6 Microeconomic evidence from the Philippine uplands 8 Econometric analysis 23 Cost-benefit analysis 29 Concluding remarks and implications 32 References 34 Appendix A. A microeconomic model of soil conservation. 38 Appendix B. Distribution of sample respondents by survey site and villages. 39 Appendix C. Estimating the productivity effects of soil conservation. 40 Adoption of Contour Hedgerows by Upland Farmers in the Philippines: An Economic Analysis Ma. Lucila A. Lapar, Sushi I Pandey, and Herman Waibel* Introduction Soil degradation through physical loss (or factors: (I) lack of or limited effective technical erosion) is an important problem, especially in or social solutions to alleviate poverty and the sloping uplands of the humid and subhumid environmental problems in these areas, (2) tropics. These areas have highly erodible soils unclear officialresponsibility for land use, (3) and high-intensity rainfall. Farmers in the humid unclear property rights to sloping public upland tropics of Asia grow a range of subsistence areas, and (4) greater degrees of poverty and crops in sloping and marginal uplands and often illiteracy in upland communities, making it use highly erosive practices (Garrity et al 1993). difficult to transferknowledge and provide In addition to decreasing in situ productivity, services for more sustainable agricultural these practices also reduce the sustainability of production (Sajise and Ganapin 1991, USAID lowland agriculture through siltation and 1995). damage to irrigation infrastructure (Francisco 1994). Several government projects with funding from internationaldonors were begun to intro Under what conditions will farmers adopt duce and spread hillside conservation farming practices that conserve soil? Experiences from practices aimed at managing sloping upland many projects indicate that the problem is often soils forsustainable crop production. Programs not the lack of technology per se but an ill fit of in agroforestry and watershed management-for the technology being promoted with the socio example, the Integrated Social Forestry Project economic conditions under which farming is of the Department of Environment and Natural carried out (Fujisaka 1989, Anderson and Resources (DENR) and the Central Visayas Thampapillai 1990, Baum et al 1993, Lutz et al Regional Project of the Department of Agricul 1994). Engineering solutions such as rock walls, ture (DA)-have always had a soil conservation check dams, and bench terraces have had little component. More often than not, these programs success in creating wider impact because of their provide direct incentives to farmer-participants high costs. Other less costly technologies such to adopt the suggested soil conservation technol as contour hedgerows (CH), contour plowing, ogy. Some nongovernmentorganizations and cover management have also been adopted, (NGOs) have likewise begun community but sporadically. Overall, various interventions development projects with soil conservation designed to promote the adoption of conserva components, such as those undertaken by the tion techniques seem to have had a limited World Neighbors and the Mag-uugmad Founda impact on soil conservation. tion, Inc. Although some of these initiatives successfully convinced farmers to adopt soil The soil degradation problem in the Philip conservation technology, others were not quite pine uplands could be the direct result of several as effective. Apparently, direct incentives alone 'Project scientist and agricultural economist, respectively, International Rice Research Institute; and professor, University of Hannover. We would like to acknowledge the research assistance of Pio Adan Genas and S.P. Regmi in the field survey and data processing. The research reported here was partiallyfunded by GTZ. Federal Republic of Germany. 1 do not guarantee adoption even if such incen The contour hedgerow technology tives appear to have increased adoption rates Contour hedgerow intercropping or alley under several government-sponsored projects. cropping on sloping lands is an agroforestry practice of planting leguminous plants on the This socioeconomic study of the adoption of contour to provide green leaf manure to fertilize CH technology by upland farmers in the Philip annual crops and serve as a barrier to soil loss pines is part of a project by the Upland Rice (Garrity 1994, Ehui 1993). The hedgerows are Research Consortium in South and Southeast cut back at the time of planting of the food crops Asia that aims to address the major constraints and are periodically pruned during cropping to to productivity and sustainability of upland rice prevent shading and to reduce competition with based farming systems. The major objectives of associated food crops. The major advantage of the study are to (I) analyze costs and returns the CH system is that it allows simultaneous associated with adoption, (2) estimate productiv fallow-i.e., the cropping and fallow phases can ity effectsof adoption of a soil conservation take place concurrently on the same land, technology, (3) determine the socioeconomic thereby making permanent cropping possible factors that affect farmers' adoption decisions, and overcoming the need for fallowing, which is (4) evaluate farmers' perceptions of the advan characteristic of shifting cultivation systems tages and disadvantages of adoption, and (5) (Garrity 1994, Ehui 1993). This technology derive policy implications fromempirical appears to be an appropriate form of soil erosion findings. Although the study looks at soil control for areas with sloping land, permanent conservation in general, it focuses on a particu plow agriculture, intense rainfall, and land lar soil conservation technology, the contour scarcity (Fujisaka 1993, Ehui 1993). hedgerow. This soil conservation practice has been widely promoted in the Philippine uplands The CH system has emerged as the latest since the early 1980s. Funding for the study example of paradigm shifts in soil conservation came from the Federal Ministry for Economic (Garrity 1994). Soil conservation earlier empha Cooperation (BMZ)/German Agency for Techni sized the engineering approach; it then yielded cal Cooperation (GTZ). to the biological approach that focused on the role of agroforestry in conserving soil. Subse This report is structured as follows. The first quently, the pruned leguminous tree hedgerow part discusses CH systems and gives some concept of contour fanning became popular as a background information regarding various way of creating simultaneous fallow. Results of efforts to promote this technology in upland global research on CH are not easy to general areas of the Philippines. The next section ize, but two major conclusions can be drawn presents a microeconomic model for analyzing from them. First, pruned tree hedgerows are not factors that influence adoption. The next part able to maintain an adequate nutrient supply to describes the characteristics of production sustain annual cropping indefinitely without systems and discusses incentives for soil conser external nutrientapplication. Hence, hedgerows vation. The next section analyzes the relation are not a viable alternativeto fallow rotation in ship between property rights and soil conserva the absence of external nutrients, but rather an tion, followed by descriptive results of empirical intermediate pathway between fallow rotation work conducted in the Philippines. Subsequent and continuous cropping with inorganic fertil sections present an econometric analysis of the izer. Second, farmer adoption of contour productivity effectsof CH and the factors hedgerows has been limited because of the determining adoption. A benefit-cost analysis of added labor needed for pruning and mainte CH systems for the Philippines follows. The nance. Many options with the same soil conser final section synthesizes the results and implica vation functions but less labor requirement and tions for policy and technology development and more economic benefits have been explored to dissemination. overcome the limitations of pruned tree 2 hedgerows. These options include the use of solutions to the perceived dominant constraints fodder grass strips and "cash perennials" such as to crop cultivation on steeply sloping lands fruit trees, coffee, and mulberry, among others. (Garrity et al 1993). The bunds provided a base for the establishment of double-CH of legumi The CH technology has been introduced into nous trees or forage grasses and a barrier to the Philippine uplands with various adaptations surface runoff,which leaves the field in contour (Garrity et al 1993). Leucaena hedgerows were ditches. The CH concept was also applied to introduced in the mid-l 970s. Applied research strongly acidic upland soils by the International in various locations in the Philippines showed Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the DA that Leucaena hedgerow intercropping produced (Fujisaka and Garrity 1988). Field experiments crop yield increases ranging from 23% to 100% showed that, after 3 yr of hedgerow intercrop (Guevarra 1976,