ANNEX III

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC SURVEYS

(an adjunct to Chapter 5 of Part 2)

1. Classification of land - methods of exploiting the land - farming systems - crop systems - production systems - technology.

    Watershed management involves all aspects of land use and this is why it is necessary to have an overall assessment of possible land use.

    Those responsible for evaluating the land must in particular answer such questions as:

• what are the risks of erosion?
• what are the physical factors that limit the restoration of the lands?
• what is the hydrological behavior of the watershed?
• what is the actual importance of erosion (volume of sediments), its causes and the quantity of soil lost?
• what are the resources of the watershed (soil, water, vegetation, wildlife) that are affected or risk being affected, and what are the downstream effects, currently and in future?
• what are the possibilities of continuous production (agriculture, forestry, animal)?
• what are the damaging effects from the physical, economic and social points of view, of the various ways of utilization?

    Specialized documents give detailed information on the classification of land, which take account of data related to such things as: geology, geo-morphology (relief), pedology, vegetation, climate, the effect of population past and present, crops, wild and domestic animals, etc.

    The various watershed management projects carried out by FAO have used several methods of evaluating land= these methods are described in the FAO Handbooks - Conservation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.

    On the other hand, FAO has also drawn up a methodology for evaluating land which is set out in FAO Soil Bulletins, particularly in Bulletin No. 32 "A Framework for Land Evaluation"

    As regards development, this information is particularly important because it makes it possible to determine the production potential of the land and to draw up proposals both on what it should be used for, and the way that it should be used (yearly or perennial crops, cereals, root plants, tubers, pulses, fruit trees, coffee plantations, tea plantations, cocoa plantations, spices, tree varieties, forests, fodder crops, grassland, etc.).

    Specialists in farming economics and management have drawn up methods for listing and analyzing farming systems which make it possible to define the ratio between inputs and outputs in relation to the different methods of farming, rotation of crops and methods of cropping.

    The ways in which the various elements of production are combined, crops, livestock, forest, etc, also have to be analysed; this is what is called systems of exploitation, or crop system.

    Finally, the production system will depend on the needs of the household (food, wood, raw materials other than wood, etc.) which have to be satisfied, as a priority, and on the possibility of directing other products from the farm onto the market (to supply urban populations, for local industry or for export).

    It will also be useful to study the degree of processing for the products (vegetable or animal origin), whether on the farm or in the village, before their marketing or their use.

    The level of technology used in farming, grazing or forestry will be determined in the light of the equipment used and the source of energy (human labour alone or assisted by animal or mechanical traction).

    The role of the specialists will consist in determining, for each terrain, the one or more methods of utilization, the more rational crop systems and then the systems of farming and production liable to give the farmer the optimum return, bearing in mind local conditions, with the minimum of risk and change in habits.

    The data provided by the surveys mentioned above will make it possible to define models for farming, herding and forestry activities for each condition. The models should make it possible to assess the feasibility of development operations:

• technical feasibility
• economic feasibility
• feasibility for what concerns management
• feasibility for what regards the infra-structure
• feasibility at the social level
• feasibility in function of the environment.

2. Demographic surveys

    Among the main socio-economic data that make it possible to take decisions on rural development and management, it is useful to know the demographic situation of the area and the structure of the population. The important data are those relating to:

• the total population and its breakdown by sex, age group, permanent and migrant populations, density by km2 (as per the small areas inside the watersheds and catchment areas), the rates of growth, the members of the household residing elsewhere (students, seasonal workers), etc.
• the number of households, their composition (degree of kinship, members who are outside the family, etc.), their breakdown into hamlets and villages, their degree of dispersion, if they are isolated one from the other,
• the number of hamlets, villages, groups of villages.

3. Surveys on social aspects, customs, structures, social services

• ethnic groups (their origin, their customs, their attitude to the natural environment, the forest in particular, main activities - herdsmen, farmers, or farmer/herdsmen, etc.)
• religion
• health, hygiene, family planning
• customary and religious prohibitions (taboos)
• matrimonial arrangements, age at the time of marriage, etc.
• traditional authorities
• administrative authorities
• associations and groupings (traditional and recent)
• position of the local community in the nation as a whole
• participation of the population in decisions concerning the community; its representation in local, regional, national councils and committees
• the role of women in the social sector
• the role of the young people in the community
• the position of the elderly (prestige, authority)
• level of social development, compared with the rest of the country
• level of education, school attendance, literacy
• housing (materials used, surface area and number of rooms, kitchen equipment installations for cooking, preparing meals, sanitary equipment, shower, W.C., water supply, lighting, granaries, storage areas, stables, etc., furniture, household utensils, etc.)
• dress
• social services and social infra-structures for: instruction, training, education, health, savings and credit, cultural sports and leisure activities old age.
• sources of information (radio, newspapers, posters, etc.)
• migration: intensity, motives, destinations, categories involved by sex and by age.

4. Surveys on the economic situation, services and infrastructures

• total surface area of the zone, its breakdown according to soil, use of soil, slope, altitude, climate, and types of exploitations.
• evaluation of the standard of living of the households (well-to-do, average, poor)
• eating habits according to income groups
• breakdown of households according to the size of the farms and the number of domestic animals
• system of land tenure, methods of exploitation, direct or indirect
• status of farmers by categories and sex; owners, tenants, share-croppers, paid labourers, other
• number of livestock, broken down by species, sex, age, system of exploitation; health status, use, production, methods of breeding, etc.
• surface area of household gardens (vegetable gardens, fruit gardens, forests, etc.)
• surface area of cultivated ground, by farm, broken down by the various crops, percentage of irrigated land, yields, etc. (by plot)
• analysis of the large production systems in the area: crops, rotation, number of harvests per year, farming methods, ratio between vegetable production and animal production, yields, methods of preserving crops when harvested, etc.
• typology of the farms: organization of the work and division of the economic tasks within the extended and close family, indicating the role of the men, the women, and the young people, according to type of production, time-table of the works carried out in the year
• level of agricultural technology (techniques, tools, inputs used)
• the part of agriculture, animal husbandry, and forestry exploitation in economic activities, in the income (by farm and by active member of each household)
• other economic occupations (industry, handicrafts, services, etc.) indicating if these are salaried, employed or independent, in the area or outside it (indicate the distance)
• other sources of income (pensions, contributions by members of the family who have gone to other countries, etc.)
• analyses of family incomes: sources by sectors, participation in producing the income, percentage in monetary income in relation to the total income, distribution of income by category of expense and by member of the family (according to the economic groups and the dominant activities) 
• eating habits: type of food eaten according to sex and age, the rate at which food requirements are satisfied, nature and amount of monetary expense for food - analyses of household consumption: value by categories, monetary and nonmonetary, by member of the family (head of the household, husband and wife, children, etc.
• amount of home-produced products that are consumed at home: destination of the remainder
• nature, sources of supply, methods of procurement and quantities of fuel used in the household
• source of lighting
• agricultural and non-agricultural labour forces, broken down by sex, age, nature of work, rate of use (permanent, seasonal), status (independent, salaried, mutual aid), origin (whether from the area or outside it)
• level of employment: total unemployment or seasonal unemployment, number of wholly-unemployed (non-farmers): by sex and category: under-employment
• agricultural and non-agricultural labour in the area and other areas
• wood used (broken down according to source and types of supply, usages)
• debts (what for, their cost, source of credit, etc.)
• number of farmers who do not have land to farm
• state of the roads, paths and other means of communication (by water, etc.)
• structure of the supply and marketing network (markets)
• water supply, to the houses, to the farms (quality of water), quantities available, sources
• availability of electricity, postal services and telecommunications
• services of craftsmen (mechanics, carpenters, blacksmiths, mills, etc.)
• official technical services available (distance, quality of these services)
• health services, education services, etc.
• possibilities for storing inputs and harvests in warehouses
• means of transport, for goods and people
  etc. etc.

5. Special surveys

    These are mainly for the collection of subjective information that cannot be expressed in figures (judgements, feelings, habits of the people) for example:

• attitude of the owner-farmers,
  "           of the non-farming owners,
  "           of the non-owner farmers (tenant farmers, sharecroppers, etc.) towards de-forestation and degradation of the land
• attitude of the population to innovations and change (traditional medicine modern medicines; traditional farming methods/modern agricultural techniques; traditional housing/improved housing; education of daughters, etc.)
• attitude of the population to the administration and the official services - tensions and harmony within the population (between ethnic groups, families, social groups, economic groups, etc.)
• movements, displacement of members of the community, frequency, purpose, direction, distances, means of locomotion, etc.)
• extent to which the population is well-informed
• opinion of the participants and non-participants in the management programme, to know their opinion on the programmes (collection of data allowing for analyses by age groups, sex, economic group, etc.)
• improvements envisaged in the future: for the community, for each hamlet, for each farm, each household.

N.B.: As the title of the Annex indicated, these are only suggestions. The surveys made can be extremely detailed. What matters is to know how to limit them to the essentials.

Other reference documents in this field are:

• FAO's experience in land classification for forestry with particular reference to developing countries. Paper presented in the IUFRO/ISSS workshop on land evaluation for forestry. Wageningen. 10-14 November 1980.
• Project UNDP-FAO TUN/77/007. Développement forestier et lutte contre l'érosion. TUNIS 1980. A-1. Programmation des Interventions. 1ère partie, Mgthodologie. S-2. Les aspects socio-gconomiques et institutionnels. (Return)

Doc. DH/ amgp.lr/3/1978. Determination of farm models for each farm system. (Return)

FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin No. 34. Farm management - data collection and analyses. Rome, 1978. (Return)

List of documents where models of questionnaires may be found:
NEPAL, FOD/NEP/74/020. February 1980. Tables 12 and 13.
INDIA, Proceedings of the National Seminar on Watershed Management - Rainfed farming and integrated Himalayan Development, New Delhi, January-February 1980.
IRAN, PO:DP/IRA/72/014, Field Document No. 12, August 1977. Appendix IV, p. 33-34.
FO:MISC/79/20, August 1979: Listado anotado para la consideration de los aspectos socio-económicos en proyectos de la ordenación de cuencas hidrográficas (Maria Inés Bustamante)
FAO, Cahier: Conservation des sols, No. 1, p. 38-42 and p. 14.
HAITI, HAI/77/005, Annex II, p. 42-49. Rapport terminal, mission de consultant en organisation communautaire et crédit agricole (March-August 1979)
FAO, Soils Bulletin No. 44. Appendix I, p. 177-217 and p. 219-226.
KENYA, TCP,/KEN/8803 and 8905. Field document I. p. 43-47.
PAKISTAN,Enquête de 1978, d'un projet réalisé de 1971 à 1976 (WFP 385 and 385 Exp)
SUISSE, Thèse ETH No. 6558. Charly Darbellay, 1980. Caractéristiques socioéonomiques des communes rurales et montagnardes ....... (Return)