Poverty and land degradation: peasants' willingness to pay to sustain land productivity

摘要

Land degradation may be the most serious environmental problem requiring prompt attention in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (Stoorvogel and Smaling, 1990; World Bank, 1996). Many SSA countries are among the poorest in the world and the farming populationsconstitute both the majority and the poorest segments of these societies. Land degradation is particularly severe in the densely populated areas of East Africa (Stoorvogel and Smaling, 1990; World Bank, 1996), including the Ethiopian highlands, where the majority of the population lives in acute poverty. It is frequently claimed that poverty may inhibit investment in land conservation and induce myopic survival strategies that prove detrimental to the natural resource base. Few studies have tested these claims empirically, however. An exception is Holden et al. (1998), who used data from Indonesia, Zambia and Ethiopia to show that poverty may cause farm households to have high discount rates. High discount rates may induce households to underinvest and to mine their natural resource base. This may be seen as an intertemporal externality because of the discrepancy between private and social discount rates. This chapter uses the same data from Ethiopia but complements them with additional data on willingness to pay (WTP) to sustain land productivity and WTP for access to improved technologies with different return and payment profiles. The additional data provide insights on the significance of intertemporal externalities due to land degradation. In places where environmental degradation is severe, as in the Ethiopian highlands, it is important to investigate farm households' interest, WTP and ability to pay (ATP) to sustain the land productivity of their own land. Such information is a prerequisitefor a sound analysis of whether there is a need for policy intervention and for establishing the appropriate sharing of intervention costs if action is warranted.