ARTICLE IN PRESS World Development Vol.xx, No.x, pp.xxx–xxx, 2003 Ó 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Printed in Great Britain www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev 0305-750X/$ - see front matter doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2003.06.004 Is Poverty to Blame for Soil, Pasture and Forest Degradation in Peru’s Altiplano? SCOTT M.SWINTON Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA and ROBERTO QUIROZ * International Potato Center, Lima, Peru Summary. — Multiple regression analysis of 1999 farm survey data from the Peruvian Altiplano finds that natural resource sustainability is not correlated with poverty; rather it varies by management activity.Soil erosion and fertility loss are reduced by fallowing, a practice of poorer farmers.Overgrazing and range species loss are increased by herd size (a measure of wealth) but reduced by rotational grazing, which is size-neutral.Deforestation––the only case of a clear poverty–environment link––results from fuel wood harvesting by the poorest households.Social and human capital variables favor the choice of more sustainable practices.When government investment is unavailable, change agents in poor areas can limit natural resource degradation by diffusing knowledge about natural resource stewardship using affordable practices. Ó 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Key words — poverty, overgrazing, erosion, deforestation, Peru, Latin America 1.EVOLVING THOUGHT ON LINKS land unit) follows a U-shaped curve in response BETWEEN POVERTY AND to the abundance of land per worker.Land ENVIRONMENT productivity falls and then rises again as growing population reduces the price ratio of Perceptions of how poverty alleviation, ag- labor to land (Templeton & Scherr, 1999).This ricultural intensification, and environmental theory is consistent with Hayami and Ruttan’s outcomes interact have evolved importantly (1985) theory of induced innovation, whereby over the past four decades.The current evolu- technological change saves the scarce factor.As tion began with Boserup’s (1965) attack on land becomes relatively more scarce, farming Malthusian thought.She argued that popula- technologies evolve away from those that saved tion does not result from limited carrying ca- pacity of the land.Rather, population density is a key cause driving agricultural intensification * The authors are grateful for financial support from the which can lead to economic growth and sus- Regional Fund for Agricultural Technology (FONT- tained productivity increases.An important AGRO) of the Inter-American Development Bank, the corollary of her thesis is that although envi- International Potato Center, and Michigan State Uni- ronmental degradation may result from popu- versity.For help in designing and implementing both lation growth, it is not a necessary result data collection and management, the authors give spe- (Boserup, 1965, p.22).This claim has been cial thanks to Jorge Reinoso, Roberto Valdivia, Sebas- supported by a number of subsequent studies tian Paredes, Silvia Aguuero,€ Mariana Cruz, Yonny (Templeton & Scherr, 1999). Barriga, Pedro Cabrera, Jose Rivera, and Andrees Val- How can population growth cause both de- ladolid.For helpful advice and comments, they also clines and gains in agricultural productivity and thank Germaan Escobar, John Kerr, Tom Walker, Jeff natural resource conservation? The economic Wooldridge, and an anonymous reviewer.Final revision rationale is that agricultural productivity (per accepted: 20 June 2003. 1 ARTICLE IN PRESS 2 WORLD DEVELOPMENT labor and capital toward those that save land. dues in food, and––at the large scale––global This intensification process leads to greater warming.Either of these two classes of problem land productivity, often including investments can result either from ‘‘mistakes’’ due to gaps in sustaining productivity over the long term. in farmers’ information and knowledge or If the good news is that environmental de- else from rational behavior by farmers with gradation need not occur, the bad news is that multiple objectives, including risk aversion. degradation still does occur in certain circum- But if farmers are reasonably well informed stances.Some authors have pinned the blame and if maximizing consumption or net income on poor farmers who intensify production with is their primary objective, then it is reasonable labor-led strategies, unable to afford such to associate wealth with the contamination complementary capital inputs as fertilizers and problems and poverty with the depletion conservation investments that might support problems. sustainable intensification (Clay, Reardon, & If this conjecture is true, then neither popu- Kangasniemi, 1998; Mink, 1993).This line of lation growth nor poverty leads simply to nat- argument shifts the blame for environmental ural resource degradation.Instead, degradation degradation from population to poverty.But will depend on the kind of farming practices poverty is not a simple substitute for popula- and their natural resource setting.The severity tion, for agriculturally related environmental of the environmental problem is likely to de- degradation often occurs in economically de- pend not only on its causes, but also on the pressed rural areas that are experiencing out- vulnerability of the specific natural resource migration (Garcııa-Barrios & Garcııa-Barrios, setting (Lutz, Pagiola, & Reiche, 1994).More- 1990; Zimmerer, 1993).This suggests a dy- over, in some settings, the agricultural deter- namic interplay between population and pov- minants of natural resource problems may turn erty whereby intensification may fail to occur if out to have little link to conventional defini- too many people ‘‘vote with their feet’’ and tions of poverty. depopulate a region.The environmental effects This research examines a unique ecoregional may be especially severe if the emigrants are setting: the Altiplano around Lake Titicaca in working-age adults (Garcııa-Barrios & Garcııa- South America.As in other parts of the Andes, Barrios, 1990). the area has suffered outmigration in recent As evidenced in the Northern Hemisphere, years (Zimmerer, 1993).The environmental agricultural environmental problems are hardly degradation problems identified there include: confined to impoverished areas.Exceptions to (a) soil erosion, (b) soil fertility decline, (c) the poverty–degradation causal chain in the overgrazing, and (d) deforestation.These developing world include rangeland produc- problems all fall into the resource depletion tivity losses due to overgrazing by large cattle category, with its implicit link to poverty as a herds.Such cases have engendered a literature determinant.But they encompass not only the that pins the blame for degradation on the apparently poverty-related problem of soil wealthy or on institutional or market failures mining, but also the seemingly wealth-related (Duraiappah, 1998). problem of overgrazing.For each of these Lacking in most of the economic literature is problems, our objectives are to answer: careful examination of the natural resource (i) How are natural resource outcomes re- base (Reardon & Vosti, 1997).Natural re- lated to agricultural practices? sources provide the setting that makes attrac- (ii) How does poverty affect the choice of tive their exploitation by humans.In those agricultural or forestry practices that agriculture, this is largely determined by the degrade the natural resource base? availability and quality of soils, moisture, In the remainder of this paper, we present a warmth, and sunshine.Agriculturally related conceptual model of linkages between poverty natural resource problems can be divided into (as measured by farm assets), choice of two categories. Resource depletion encompasses farming practices, and natural resource out- problems of aquifer exhaustion, soil fertility comes.That model is examined empirically in mining, soil erosion, deforestation, and over- search of links between low-asset levels and grazing (the latter two both being forms of natural resource degradation.We close by biodiversity loss). Resource contamination en- discussing how results for this eco-region and compasses water pollution (e.g., by agro- the relevant asset categories contribute to the chemicals, fertilizers or excess manure runoff), state of knowledge on poverty–environment land salination, pesticide and antibiotic resi- linkages. ARTICLE IN PRESS SOIL, PASTURE AND FOREST DEGRADATION 3 2.A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR by a vector of agricultural practices (xt)as POVERTY–ENVIRONMENT LINKAGES conditioned by other natural characteristics (zNt) and random effects (etþ1).Eqn.(1) can be The framework used here for understand- restated in terms of change in natural resource ing poverty–environment linkages proceeds status by subtracting NRit from both sides of through two stages, as illustrated in Figure 1. the equation to yield the difference equation: First, farmers choose their agricultural prac- tices.Their choices are influenced by household DNRi ¼ f ðDx; DzNÞþe: ð2Þ asset levels, the external economic environ- ment, and natural resource endowments.Sec- Natural conditions (zN) include land charac- ond, their farming practices, in turn, combine teristics such as elevation, slope, aspect and soil with natural environment characteristics plus type, as well as other location and climate random environmental changes to create nat- characteristics governed by geography.These ural resource outcomes.Those outcomes, pos- characteristics cannot be changed, so for public itive or negative, shape farmers’ subsequent policy purposes, it