The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries

Piers Blaikie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317268376
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Environmental Economics
• Index: Economics

First published in 1985. This book examines wide variety of ways in which environmental deterioration, in particular soil erosion, can be viewed and the implicit political judgements that often inform them. Using the context of developing countries, where the effects tend to be more acute due to underdevelopment and climatic factors, this work aims to examine this source of uncertainty and make explicit the underlying assumptions in the debate about soil erosion. It also rejects the notion that soil erosion is a politically neutral issue and argues that conservation requires fundamental social change. This title will be of interest to students of environmental and developmental studies.

Chapter 1

The issues addressed

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1. The problem

Much of the debate about world-wide environmental deterioration is beset by uncertainty. One result of this is that there is a bewildering range of opinion about the causes, how far it has gone – and indeed about whether the whole issue is important at all. What is more, many of these contrasting views do not seem to address themselves to each other. One comment will be about a particular region of the world, from which general conclusions are drawn, but another will draw its illustrative material from another quite different region, and reach different conclusions. Also there seems to be a number of different ways of treating the whole problem, ideologically, politically and methodologically.

There are three major sources of this uncertainty. The first arises from the difficulty of obtaining accurate and widespread measurement of environmental deterioration through a long enough time period to indicate trends. Although there have been many recent improvements in measurement and monitoring, long established and reliable data sets are few and far between. Secondly, it is often difficult to single out the effect of humans on soil erosion and sedimentation rates, from other effects such as climatic change, and ongoing ‘natural’ erosion processes.

The last source of uncertainty provides the main focus of this book. It concerns the wide variety of ways in which environmental deterioration, and soil erosion in particular, can be viewed. Soil scientists, historians and social scientists all tend to have different approaches to the problem – what is important, what can be safely ignored, and the rules of discourse on the subject. Also there are widely differing political judgements involved, and many of these remain implicit and unexamined. This book aims to look at this source of uncertainty and make explicit the underlying assumptions which are made in the debate about soil erosion. However it is not a neutral book. It takes sides and argues a position because soil erosion is a political-economic issue, and even a position of so-called neutrality rests upon partisan assumptions.

Of course soil erosion is an environmental process as well. Within a geological perspective it goes on with or without human agencies. Even when a deterioration in soil structure and moisture retention levels occurs as a result of human activity, it may remain unrecognised or unimportant to people living in affected areas. It becomes a social issue when this deterioration (or removal of the soil) is recognised, and some sort of action taken. At this juncture it enters people’s minds and becomes an object of thought. As long as this action (whether it be remedial, palliative or avoiding) is effective and does not cause a conflict of interests, soil erosion does not yet become a problem. Pastoralists can move to new pastures unchallenged, or farmers migrate to till new lands.

However, such adaptations, particularly during the last two centuries have usually brought about such a conflict. When this occurs, soil erosion also becomes a political-economic issue. The conflict of interests may be explicitly about soil erosion and conservation, or it may be politically expressed in other guises and connected to other issues such as a struggle for territory or over the amount or rate of appropriation of surpluses.

Because of the present-day recognition of soil erosion as a problem in many parts of the world, it is frequently disentangled from its political-economic context. Usually this recognition comes ‘from above’, either literally, in the case of a foreign advisor from a light aircraft, or by policy-makers, politicians or senior bureaucrats. Whoever recognises soil erosion, it is then publicised by those who have access to political power – and in a way which is at least not unfavourable to their interests, in so far as they may be involved.

After soil erosion has become a political-economic issue, and has been made an object of discussion and debate by those who have political power, then there arises the question of intervention, usually by the institutions of state. As this book argues, effective soil conservation involves itself in quite fundamental social change, sometimes involving people who live outside the affected area altogether. It is because the state becomes involved in soil conservation that soil erosion has already become a political-economic issue in the first place. So deeply embedded are the actions of human beings which lead to erosion, that intervention cannot avoid enmeshing itself in contradictions within society. Intervention therefore implies a mediation or a taking sides in conflicts of interest. The state is involved willy-nilly, and with it its functionaries – senior bureaucrats, politicians, foreign advisors, technicians, right down to the forest ranger and village headman. Intervention will usually affect (or try to affect) the livelihood of land-users in eroded areas, or at least where soil erosion is recognised to be a problem. This may involve land tenure systems; changes in the law, even in the constitution; rearrangements in pricing structures and credit arrangements; altering the foreign earnings capability of the nation, and so on. That is the problem and challenge.

2. What this book says

There are some leading opinions which claim that soil erosion, although perhaps widespread, is not important, and that ‘induced innovations’ by farmers, governments and private sector research and development institutions will cope. These opinions seem so diametrically opposed to many others which claim that erosion is widespread and serious that the problem arises over how to judge the issue (see sect. 2.2). Problems of reliable and comprehensive measurement in most lesser developed countries, the inadequacy of statistical models and the problem of distinguishing ‘natural’ from accelerated erosion, all make the likelihood of persuasive empirical proof seem remote. It is at least notionally possible to improve the level of empirical testing by implementing better monitoring systems, and developing an understanding of erosion processes and their statistical modelling, but the disagreements which make a settlement of the argument by empirical means unlikely are ideological ones. The principal issue here is a question of judgement over the extent to which land-users can mask or ‘make good’ soil degradation and erosion, and this depends upon their present and future access to chemical fertilisers, improved seeds, credit, government assistance in land erosion works, soil conserving crop rotations and tillage methods.

A number of serious doubts arise about whether induced innovations will be able to cope with soil erosion. First of all, it is not clear how poor farmers, often living in economically and physically marginal areas, will generate strong market signals to institutions of research and development in both state institutions and private concerns since such institutions tend to ignore the needs of poor and/or small farmers and environmentally fragile areas because the economic returns to research and development tend often to be small. It is also doubtful if there is the political will for governments to intervene in research as well as in effective assistance for these areas and people. Lastly, existing developments in agricultural technology are frequently not suitable or are inaccessible to small farmers and pastoralists in marginal areas. Political, social and economic barriers also exist to prevent affected rural populations from migrating to new, uneroded lands or from leaving the agricultural sector altogether. It is a matter not of what exists but of who commands what.

These considerations complete the vicious circle. Inequalities between the majority of the rural populations affected by soil erosion and other more powerful groups in access to adequate economic opportunities are both a result and a cause of soil erosion. In this sense soil erosion is a symptom of underdevelopment, and it reinforces that condition. Therefore to the rural poor at least, soil erosion is an important element in their poverty. There follows a simple typology of social contexts in which soil erosion occurs and it shows a great range of types of societies in lesser developed countries as well as in western and socialist countries. Both the processes of development and underdevelopment can lead to serious soil erosion (see sect. 2.3).

In an evaluation of existing conservation in lesser developed countries a distinction has to be made between techniques, programmes and policies (sect. 3.1). A brief review of the techniques of soil and pasture conservation follows (sect. 3.2), with some brief indication of the degree and type of social intervention that each technique requires.

While conservation techniques are the direct method of reducing or preventing soil erosion, programmes and policies involve implementing those techniques and therefore confront much more problematic political and economic issues. While techniques within pilot projects may have enjoyed some success, their extension and implementation over wide enough areas and numbers of people to have an appreciable effect in reducing erosion and improving food production have almost universally met with slow progress or failure. A review of policies of lesser developed countries and some other countries shows that only South Korea, the Republic of South Africa, and parts of the People’s Republic of China can lay any claim, however qualified, to a successful national policy (sect. 3.3). This is not to deny the success of smaller projects which do not test the implementing capacity of government institutions nor involve themselves in large-scale politically sensitive issues.

Why do these policies usually fail? In Chapter 4 the starting point is to analyse different perceptions of the problem, especially of policy-makers, government officials and administrators. If it is recognised that ‘social factors’ are important in the problems faced by conservation policies, they apply not only to land-users but also to those who would intervene (see sect. 4.1). A ‘colonial’ or classic model of soil conservation is identified in which the problem of soil erosion is seen primarily as an environmental one, rather than a complex ‘socio-environmental’ problem, and therefore coercion and force applied by the colonial rulers upon the ruled can afford to ignore the social problems which led to soil erosion in the first place (see sect. 4.2). The second attribute of the colonial model is that it lays the blame on land-users themselves, and identifies them as lazy, ignorant, backward or irrational. Thirdly the model closely links the issues of overpopulation and soil erosion, and lastly it assumes that one of the major policy directions is to involve cultivators and pastoralists more strongly in the market economy. The economic and ideological structure of the colonial period goes a long way to explain this perception of the problem. For a number of reasons, elements of this colonial political-economic structure still persist, again both in the realm of economics as well as in that of ideas.

Many conservation policies are initiated, financed and staffed by foreign aid donors (sect. 4.3). The particular requirements of successful conservation programmes are just those which foreign aid projects are not very good at supplying. Programme inputs and outputs are diverse, diffuse, long term and difficult to quantify both conceptually and practically. Implementation is deeply involved in internal political issues; and at all stages of project design, implementation and evaluation, in-depth and critical political economic analysis and uncomfortable recommendations usually have to be made.

The state of the art of soil conservation has slowly evolved from the colonial model, although some of its characteristics remain in present-day policies. A mood of self-examination among policymakers has been prevalent for some time, and a number of shortcomings have been identified. First, technical failures in soil conservation techniques have been seen to have been the cause of a number of problems in conservation policy. Second, many conservation techniques do not fit in with existing agricultural or pastoral practice, nor are they chosen or implemented with the participation of the land-users themselves. Lastly, many institutional weaknesses, particularly a lack of coordination between line agencies have also been identified (see sect. 4.4). These admissions of failure are useful, but they amount to a piecemeal improvement in the perception of the problem. Most of these reasons for failure are related to each other, and although they can prompt some remedial action (e.g. the stimulation of the flow of information between implementing agencies or the linkage of conservation with wider development efforts), they fail to make explicit more fundamental assumptions. These are that the causes of soil erosion may be outside the afflicted area altogether; that the state is not neutral and cannot necessarily solve soil erosion problems rationally or impartially; and that there are always winners and losers in erosion and conservation (see sect. 4.5)

A new approach is suggested in Chapter 5. There are considerable problems in combining the study of essential physical and social processes in the political economy of soil erosion which derive from the rather different epistemological and ideological characteristics of the natural and social sciences (see sect. 5.1). Such a study must include a ‘place-based’ analysis of soil erosion – where it actually occurs, where flooding and siltation caused by soil erosion in one place affects another, and where land-users have been spatially displaced to and from. It must also include and combine ‘non-place-based’ analysis of the relations of production under which land is used, the technology used and why, prices, taxes and so on. Bringing these two analyses together (see section 5.2), a ‘bottom-up’ approach is outlined in which focus is first directed to the smallest unit of decision-making in the use of land (the family, the household, pastoral group), and the politics within the household (sexual politics, and the role of the ‘head of the household’). Next, the household or small group’s decision-making (over what crops to grow, where to pasture stock, where to collect fuel and fodder, etc.) is affected by a larger political organisation such as the village council, tribal chief or other representative of a local and territorially defined political institution. Finally, the focus falls on the way government and the administration effect land-use decisions through nationally enforced legal structures (particularly land tenure); pricing policies; taxation; allocation of national resources; and through more general but pervasive influences on class power and struggle – where power lies and how it is used (see sect. 5.3).

A review of how class interests in erosion and conservation are expressed follows (see sect. 5.4). Where there are people involved in soil erosion (directly and indirectly) and in conservation who do not have political power and cannot effectively express their economic interests through formal or informal channels, their responses tend to be individual, usually concerning private land-use decisions. The necessary cooperation with other land-users is usually difficult to achieve. They are often diverse, politically weak and divided, and the problems caused by erosion or conservation are frequently bound up in a variety of other conflicts of interest. Therefore concerted political action tends to be rare, and when it occurs it is usually ephemeral. Those groups or classes who tend to have access to and use the ‘state apparatus’ are seldom adversely affected by soil erosion, and what adverse effects they do experience can be avoided. Sometimes their power derives from the fact that they are surplus-producing farmers who export food to towns or abroad (thereby earning foreign exchange), and they can often prevent government ‘interference’ in their land-use and investment decisions on the farm. So ruling classes in many less developed countries are frequently not too concerned at the effects of soil erosion. Senior bureaucrats and policy-makers whose function it is to make and implement policies therefore often face lukewarm responses, and many embarrassing political contradictions.

New problems arise from this approach (see sect. 5.5). The analytical task is enormous, and action may be called for that stretches far beyond the individual’s sphere of possible action and terms of reference. There are also problems of what some natural and social scientists expect as acceptable rules of discourse, proof and evidence. As an illustration of the new approach suggested, a comparison follows between soil conservation and family planning policies as examples of government-sponsored development activities (see sect. 5.6). They are similar in many respects. First, they both attempt to get individuals to change a most intimate and important part of their lives – of work and reproduction. Second, there are contradictions between private and public benefits. Third, there are technical reasons (in the design of contraceptive devices or soil conservation techniques) why adopters sometimes suffer. Fourth, land-use and family decisions are dependent on a mass of other variables which only change slowly and are not amenable to precise and rapid policy initiatives. And lastly, both programmes tend to be unpopular and politically embarrassing to government. There have been significant advances in the conceptualisation of rapid population growth and family planning which are relevant to soil erosion and conservation, particularly in the political economic analysis of why people have large families or contribute to soil erosion, and in whose interests and in the name of what dominant ideology the state intervenes.

The b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 The issues addressed
• Chapter 2 Is soil erosion really a problem?
• Chapter 3 A review of techniques and policies
• Chapter 4 Why do policies usually fail?
• Chapter 5 A new approach – with new problems
• Chapter 6 Understanding why soil erosion occurs
• Chapter 7 The exploitation of natural resources and labour
• Chapter 8 The other side of the coin
• Chapter 9 What now?
• Bibliography
• Index