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3. Human barriers to conservation
Local
institutions play role
Farmers
need more income
Feeling
for land essential
Land
tenure affects erosion
Fertilizer purchases constrained
Political
consciousness lacking
Laws
may be unenforced
Funds
spent unwisely
Machinery
may hasten erosion
Social
changes
Inappropriate technology can lead to failure
Local
people must participate
It is not high wind or rain that is the real cause of accelerated erosion, nor is it some inherent defect in the land. It is people who destroy the soil, and they do it by demanding more of the land than it can provide without help.
People expand their populations until farming systems can no longer support them. The way they overgraze pastures and plant crops may cause soil to wash or blow. They strip away forests from the sides of mountains, where trees afford the only protection from erosion and landslides, and they push farming into semi-arid grazing land where drought can destroy both crops and land. Particularly in time of crisis or change, they treat precious natural resources as if they could withstand any depredation - and last forever.
But what man degrades, he can also improve. But here again, it is not the forces of nature that keep people from taking remedial action, and in most cases, it is not the lack of technical information. What really gets in the way of effective programmes of conservation are human institutions - people's habits and customs, their status and income, their form of government, and their way of looking at themselves, their societies, and the rest of the world. If soil erosion is approached as a technical problem alone, it will never be overcome.
Developing a consistent, long-term programme of soil conservation calls for institutions and services that are conspicuously absent in rural communities in most developing countries. They include security of land tenure and farm credit facilities, adequate markets and transportation to reach those markets, access to fertilizers and chemicals, technical assistance and adequate farm income.
In developed countries, local institutions play an essential role in promoting soil conservation. They include a locally based extension worker and a soil conservation technician. Local bankers also support conservation, as do machinery dealers and owners of farm supply stores. Schools teach vocational agriculture, including conservation farming, and clergymen preach the virtues of resource stewardship.
Conservation is also promoted in developed countries by specialized media of communications, including farm magazines, rural radio broadcasts, and agricultural bulletins published by government agencies and universities. Many institutions support and reinforce programmes of soil conservation.
In tropical and subtropical countries, rural villages have institutions of their own that have been developed over the years to meet the needs of individuals and the community. But in recent times, many of these villages have been overtaken by change and their institutions have not had a chance to catch up. Expanding populations, war, famine, economic instability - and even new-found wealth - have altered age-old relationships and the structure of family, village, and tribal organizations. Arrangements that worked well in the past have disintegrated and new institutions have not yet been created to replace them. In many places, absentee landlords, sharecropping, and growing landlessness all contribute to the deterioration.
So much is needed for the improvement of agriculture and resource management! People need banks or credit unions that can provide agricultural loans at relatively low interest rates and where farmers can invest their savings. They need local farm cooperatives for group purchases of fertilizers, seed, and other inputs to help them market their products. Many villagers also need more secure land tenure, schools for their children. and extension systems to help them apply better farming practices. They require a better return on their labour, better prices for the products they grow and consumers with enough money to pay those prices.
Like any other enterprise, the returns from farming must be sufficient to cover the cost of daily living and related business expenses, such as the purchase of seed, fertilizer, and fuel. They must also be large enough to allow farmers to save money to invest in measures to conserve soil and water and to increase production.
An adequate income, however, is much more difficult to obtain on a small farm with eroded land than on a large farm with good land. The size of the majority of tropical farms, particularly those in southeast Asia and tropical Africa, is less than 5 hectares, and many farms are smaller than that. They are often badly eroded, but to install costly mechanical conservation practices like terraces is beyond the means of the people that farm them. It is axiomatic in developing countries that the farmers who need to make the largest per hectare investment in conservation are the farmers who can least afford it.
There are, however, many inexpensive conservation practices which farmers can carry out themselves such as contour farming and appropriate agronomic practices, if only they knew how. Unfortunately, there are not enough trained extension workers in most countries to transmit the needed information.
The greatest risk of land degradation arises when land users do not have a deep feeling for the welfare of the land. The risk is increased when the users regard the land merely as a source of sustenance and income. This is often so in developing countries where tenancy laws are not well developed to protect the land as well as the interests of tenants and landlords.
Unless a lease specifically mentions the condition of the farm at the end of tenure, a landlord may charge a rent high enough to compensate himself for losses of soil and soil nutrients. The tenant in turn will "mine" the soil to produce the rent.
Observers in India, where soil erosion continues at high rates, report that landlords customarily have no desire to spend apparently unproductive capital on small parts of their holdings, even assuming that they are aware that erosion is taking place. The tenant, who may be well aware of the erosion, either lacks money to deal with the problem or cannot spare the labour from the short-term need of next year's harvest. Beyond these considerations, he has no economic incentive to make the improvements since he cannot see how they will benefit him directly.
Clearly, systems of land ownership as well as tenure and business arrangements which do not provide security to the farmer are major obstacles to conservation. Among the most pernicious of these are short-term land leases, which fail to provide an incentive to a farmer to invest in long-term improvements. In general, the less secure the tenure, the greater the encouragement to exploit the land.
Inequities in land ownership may also encourage soil erosion. In Andean Latin America, for example, wealthy ranchers often use the relatively level valley floors to graze cattle, forcing the small, poor landowners onto the steep slopes to produce subsistence crops. This practice leads to severe erosion on slopes, impairing the productivity both of the mountainside farms and the valleys below, where streams become clogged with eroded sediment.
Another foe of conservation is single-crop agriculture. Usually single-crop farming fails either to return a good living to the man who works the land or to maintain the productivity of the soil, or both. Even where the soil is very productive and not easily damaged, a single-crop system usually means a poor living for the farm labourer, if not for the owner. If the price of the one crop goes down to very low levels, the farmer may be ruined. One-crop farmers may be affluent one year and poverty-stricken the next.
Fertilizer purchases constrained
Lack of cash or credit is one of the major reasons for delaying conservation measures and for failure to adopt farming systems that lead to higher yields. It is the chief reason, for instance, why so many farmers in developing countries do not use mineral fertilizers and chemicals to control pests and weeds, despite evidence that their application would raise crop yields substantially.
In addition, the small farmer short of cash is often suspicious of innovations and untried methods of farming, particularly when he has not seen the benefits with his own eyes. One reason for his negative attitude is that he cannot afford to make mistakes with his time or money.
The poorer a land user, the fewer chances he can afford to take with his livelihood. In traditional farming, where the level of income is close to the subsistence level, any risk of loss is intolerable. Borrowing the cash seems foolhardy unless the farmer is absolutely certain that what he buys with the money will provide him with enough return to pay back the principal and interest.
Political consciousness lacking
Perhaps the most important ingredient missing in unsuccessful responses to the threat of soil erosion is a national political will grounded in awareness. A country's planners, with university-level training in economics, law, and political science, may be unaware that natural resources, including land and water, require conservation measures to protect them. Typically such people are not much interested in farming. Or they may be aware that the policies and programmes required to deal with the problem would prove unpopular with urban and rural voters. Frequently, soil conservation programmes lack appeal for politicians because the stern measures required for success are likely to annoy or even anger constituents. Frequently, they require heavy investments from which no short-term return can be perceived.
Lack of political interest can be found even in countries suffering the most severe resource damage. Despite widespread soil erosion, deforestation, and flooding, some countries still lack a good, workable plan for the care of the land.
Even where political indifference is overcome and a country adopts what appears to be commendable conservation legislation, the existence of a law on the books does not necessarily mean that it will be followed or enforced.
Reviews of political constraints on conservation programmes in some developing countries reveal that laws and regulations may be more than adequate to protect their natural resources, but often few if any of the laws may be put to use. Typical shortcomings consist of at least one, or all of the following:
In some countries, inappropriate laws and policies may lead to an increase in erosion by encouraging farmers to plant soil-depleting crops or to pursue damaging cultural practices for the sake of short-term gain.
Political considerations will occasionally force unwise expenditure of public funds to satisfy larger and more influential farmers and divert soil conservation funds to projects with a relatively low priority. In the USA, a recent survey disclosed that more than 52 percent of all erosion-control measures installed with government financial help were installed on land where erosion was not very serious. Much critical soil erosion was bypassed.
Unforeseen obstacles - some apparently minor - may block adoption of improved agricultural practices in developing countries. One reason for the failure of hybrid maize to gain a foothold in parts of South America, for example, has been the lack of institutions for producing the seed each year and for distributing it. Further, many subsistence farmers are not able to afford it. The traditional practice since agriculture began in many South American farming communities has been to save a portion of the harvest as seed for next year's crop. The custom is deeply ingrained in the economic and even religious life of the people.
Sometimes a farmer will be prevented from building terraces or converting to livestock because of rigidities in the market. There may be no local rental outlet for equipment or a farmer may not have access to a bullock where he needs it for conservation work. A coordinated local programme that makes bullocks or tractors available could remove one of the obstacles to improved resource management.
On the other hand, using farm machinery the wrong way may actually promote soil erosion. Where expanded cultivation has been encouraged, not only by larger populations and higher prices for food grains, but also by the ready availability of tractors, the tractors have made it easy to plough steep slopes without any regard for resource protection. Similar experiences have been reported where heavy machinery has cleared and cultivated new farmland before management of local soils was fully understood and practiced.
Modernization of another kind has helped degrade soils in areas of shifting cultivation in eastern Africa, where at one time several tribes practicing shifting cultivation also moved their villages from time to time. This was necessary because of the long fallow period, 17 years or more, that it took for cropland to recover. Moving the village caused no great social upheaval, as the group moved together and retained its identity and relationships. In time, however, new institutions came to the villages, along with permanent buildings post offices, dispensaries, police barracks and court houses. Permanent houses were built for the people who worked in these buildings. These structures helped anchor villages of the shifting cultivator, and surrounding areas were soon cropped to exhaustion.
In some countries, social customs may be retained which are no longer appropriate to changed conditions and which will lead to soil degradation. For example, where the numbers of cattle appropriate to a man's station in life often exceed the capacity of the land to support them. It is numbers of livestock, and not their condition, that signify wealth and status among the herdsmen.
Inappropriate technology can lead to failure
Not all obstacles to sound resource management can be blamed on inappropriate institutions in developing countries.
Damage to the soil has also resulted from attempts to transfer a system of agriculture that has proved successful in a temperate zone to a tropical one, without adequate research to determine if the system is workable in its new environment. All too frequently, it is not. A number of farming systems developed in temperate Europe were exported without success to tropical Africa, where intense, erosive storms are commonplace. Europeans learned that many soils in the tropics, particularly those with high iron content, have to be managed differently from those in Europe. Clearing the vegetation from such soils and exposing them to heavy rainfall can make them as hard and unworkable as concrete.
Even if an improved farming system is technically appropriate for a developing country, its adoption may still prove unfeasible. Some conservation measures, like contour cultivation, are relatively simple to apply and are likely to increase crop yields as well as protect the soil. But more elaborate measures, such as building terraces, may require the use of tools or machinery that local people are ill-equipped to maintain and operate. Further, even the simplest practices often require some basic technical training and assistance before a farmer can adopt them.
To be sure, farmers in several countries were building elaborate bench terraces centuries ago, long before recent local conditions justified the effort and made the need obvious again. But other cultures have no tradition of terracing. Before one can recommend terracing to a people unfamiliar with it, one must know and understand the people, as well as the peculiarities of the soil and climate which determine the usefulness of such a technique.
No conservation project will work unless local people participate in developing and applying it. Examples abound of elaborate conservation works, designed by officials in another city or by imported agricultural "experts", which have failed chiefly because the farmer had not been involved in the planning. As a result, he did not accept maintenance of the works as his responsibility; he regarded the new structure as something outside his concern. Involvement of local people in planning and carrying out a conservation programme is a requisite for its success. It is people who cause soil erosion and it is people, working together, who must find the cures and apply them.