IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/rdevec/v8y2004i2p255-265.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Swidden Agriculture in Developing Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Amitrajeet A. Batabyal
  • Hamid Beladi

Abstract

Small farmers in many tropical developing countries practice swidden agriculture. A key aspect of swidden agriculture is the time period during which the land is left fallow. This paper uses a new ecological–economic approach to study the fallow period and to determine the optimal length of this period in swidden agriculture. The authors first construct a theoretical model of a parcel of forest land that has been cleared for swidden agriculture. It is then shown how the dynamic and the stochastic properties of this cleared land can be used to derive two objective functions for a small farmer that are ecologically meaningful. Finally, using these two objectives, a probabilistic approach to the determination of the optimal length of the fallow period is discussed. In this approach, the focus of the small farmer is on maintaining the ecological and the economic sustainability of swidden agriculture on the cleared parcel of forest land (CPFL).

Suggested Citation

  • Amitrajeet A. Batabyal & Hamid Beladi, 2004. "Swidden Agriculture in Developing Countries," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(2), pages 255-265, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:rdevec:v:8:y:2004:i:2:p:255-265
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9361.2004.00231.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9361.2004.00231.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9361.2004.00231.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcel Fafchamps, 1992. "Cash Crop Production, Food Price Volatility, and Rural Market Integration in the Third World," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 74(1), pages 90-99.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Amitrajeet A. Batabyal & Gregory J. DeAngelo, 2008. "A Dynamic And Stochastic Analysis Of Fertilizer Use In Swidden Agriculture," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Dynamic And Stochastic Approaches To The Environment And Economic Development, chapter 4, pages 67-78, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Yoshito Takasaki & Bradford L. Barham & Oliver T. Coomes, 2010. "Smoothing Income against Crop Flood Losses in Amazonia: Rain Forest or Rivers as a Safety Net?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 48-63, February.
    3. Yoshito Takasaki, 2011. "Economic models of shifting cultivation: a review," Tsukuba Economics Working Papers 2011-006, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba.
    4. Amitrajeet A. Batabyal & Dug Man Lee, 2008. "Aspects Of Land Use In Slash And Burn Agriculture," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Dynamic And Stochastic Approaches To The Environment And Economic Development, chapter 3, pages 57-66, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:17:y:2004:i:3:p:1-10 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Yoshito Takasaki & Oliver T. Coomes & Christian Abizaid & Stéphanie Brisson, 2014. "An Efficient Nonmarket Institution under Imperfect Markets: Labor Sharing for Tropical Forest Clearing," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(3), pages 711-732.
    7. Batabyal, Amitrajeet A. & DeAngelo, Gregory J., 2012. "Goods allocation by queuing and the occurrence of violence: A probabilistic analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 1-7.
    8. Justin R. Bucciferro, 2016. "Neither counterfeit nor paradise: The carrying capacity of pre-Columbian ecosystems in Brazil," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(1), pages 17-30, January.
    9. Unai Pascual & Edward B. Barbier, 2007. "On Price Liberalization, Poverty, and Shifting Cultivation: An Example from Mexico," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 83(2), pages 192-216.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ecker, Olivier & Hatzenbuehler, Patrick L. & Mahrt, Kristi, 2018. "Transforming agriculture for improving food and nutrition security among Nigerian farm households," NSSP working papers 56, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Tesfaye, Wondimagegn & Tirivayi, Nyasha, 2020. "Crop diversity, household welfare and consumption smoothing under risk: Evidence from rural Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    3. Momanyi, Denis & Lagat, Prof. Job K. & Ayuya, Dr. Oscar I., 2016. "Analysis of the Marketing Behaviour of African Indigenous Leafy Vegetables among Smallholder Farmers in Nyamira County, Kenya," MPRA Paper 69202, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 27 Jan 2016.
    4. Ruben, Ruerd & Pender, John, 2004. "Rural diversity and heterogeneity in less-favoured areas: the quest for policy targeting," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 303-320, August.
    5. Haile, M.G. & Kalkuhl, M., 2014. "Volatility in the international food markets: implications for global agricultural supply and for market and price policy," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 49, March.
    6. Del Prete, Davide & Ghins, Léopold & Magrini, Emiliano & Pauw, Karl, 2019. "Land consolidation, specialization and household diets: Evidence from Rwanda," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 139-149.
    7. Luca Tiberti & Marco Tiberti, 2015. "Rural Policies, Price Change and Poverty in Tanzania: An Agricultural Household Model-Based Assessment," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), vol. 24(2), pages 193-229.
    8. Andre Croppenstedt & Markus Goldstein & Nina Rosas, 2013. "Gender and Agriculture: Inefficiencies, Segregation, and Low Productivity Traps," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 28(1), pages 79-109, February.
    9. Fafchamps, Marcel & De Janvry, Alain & Sadoulet, Elisabeth, 1995. "Transaction Costs, Market Failures, Competitiveness and the State," 1994 Conference, August 22-29, 1994, Harare, Zimbabwe 183396, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    10. Chen, Kevin Z. & Meilke, Karl D. & Turvey, Calum G., 1996. "The Economics of Generic Income Stabalization Schemes," Working Papers 123558, University of Guelph, Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    11. Subramanian, Arjunan & Qaim, Matin, 2006. "Competition, Kinship or Reciprocity? Village Experiments in Alternative Modes of Exchange," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25434, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    12. Brenton, Paul & Portugal-Perez, Alberto & Regolo, Julie, 2014. "Food prices, road infrastructure, and market integration in Central and Eastern Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7003, The World Bank.
    13. Marshall Burke & Lauren Falcao Bergquist & Edward Miguel, 2019. "Sell Low and Buy High: Arbitrage and Local Price Effects in Kenyan Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 785-842.
    14. Deepananda Herath & Alfons Weersink, 2007. "Peasants and plantations in the Sri Lankan tea sector: causes of the change in their relative viability ," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 51(1), pages 73-89, March.
    15. Blake, Adam & Gomez-Plana, Antonio Gomez & Latorre Munoz, María C., 2005. "Macroeconomic effects of foreign direct investment in the Spanish economy," Conference papers 331357, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    16. KAMINSKI Jonathan & THOMAS Alban, 2009. "Commodity Reform and Extensive Production Growth: Evidence from Burkinabè cotton farmers," LERNA Working Papers 09.01.277, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    17. Kaminski, Jonathan, 2008. "Changing Incentives to Sow Cotton for African Farmers: Evidence from the Burkina Faso Reform," Discussion Papers 45779, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Agricultural Economics and Management.
    18. Barrett, Christopher B., 1996. "On price risk and the inverse farm size-productivity relationship," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 193-215, December.
    19. Christophe Gouel, 2013. "Rules versus Discretion in Food Storage Policies," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1029-1044.
    20. Barrett, Christopher B. & Brown, Douglas R., 2002. "Agriculture And Rural Development: Lessons For Christian Groups Combating Persistent Poverty," Working Papers 14738, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O44 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Environment and Growth
    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:rdevec:v:8:y:2004:i:2:p:255-265. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1363-6669 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.