Pasture taxes and agricultural intensification in southern Mali

This study integrates biophysical simulation data with a farm household model of intertemporal optimization, to investigate changing crop‐livestock management practices in the Sudano‐Guinean zone of Mali. Over a 15‐yr time horizon we find that free grazing on the commons remains more attractive to the representative household than adopting more labor‐and capital‐intensive confinement systems, but that a relatively low level of pasture tax (around US$3 per livestock unit per year) would be sufficient to induce intensification. Because confinement raises output, the net cost of the tax to the household is only about US$1 per unit per year. Imposing pasture taxes to induce intensification could raise community welfare, if the value of commons resources liberated by reduced grazing pressure exceeds that level.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)