Browsing by Author "Coxhead, Ian"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 53
  • Addressing the water resource management issue
    Orprecio, Jim L.; Rola, Agnes C.; Deutsch, William G.; Coxhead, Ian; Sumbalan, Antonio (Makati City, Philippines: Philippine Institute for Development Studies, 2002)
    The rapid growth in demand for water by the agricultural, industrial and household sectors will place greater pressure on Philippine water supplies in the future. Among the many water management issues, surface water management, watershed management or more precisely, river basin management is prominent in both the local and national scenes.
  • Agricultural change, rural labor markets, and forest clearing: An illustrative case from the Philippines
    Shively, Gerald E. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001)
    This paper investigates the relationship of agricultural employment and land use choices in upland tropical forest margins. The author combines models of lowland agricultural production and upland farm labor allocation to study the influence of labor productivity, agricultural wages, and economic returns on deforestation rates. Data collected from Philippine farms shows that adoption of lowland irrigation increased labor demand, providing employment to upland residents, and thus causing a small (but statistically significant) reduction in deforestation rates.
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    Assessing SANREM's impacts in Lantapan: Results of a survey
    Buenavista, Gladys; Coxhead, Ian; Kim, K. (Madison, Wisc.: University of Madison-Wisconsin, 1998)
    In this paper we report on a project impact study conducted at the Lantapan, Philippines field site of the SANREM CRSP project. To substitute for "with project" and "without project" samples of respondents (since other sources of heterogeneity may divide these) we construct several measures of "distance" from the project and locate our sample along these measures. While hypotheses of statistical causation remain to be tested, preliminary analysis of the survey results indicates that proximity to the project is positively correlated with heightened awareness of environmental linkages and concepts, more "environment-conscious" attitudes, and a higher propensity to adopt relatively costly sustainable agriculture practices such as integrated pest management (IPM), hedgerows and contour strips. These findings emerge in spite of a relatively brief project life (less than five years) and a concentration of project activities on research rather than training or extension. We conclude from the latter observation that a participatory
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    Assessing the impact of a participatory, research-oriented project: Results of a survey
    Buenavista, Gladys; Coxhead, Ian; Kim, Kwansoo (Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development, 2001)
    In this paper we report our attempts to evaluate the achievements of a project whose main purpose is, through applied research and participatory information exchange, to influence the environmental awareness, attitudes and practices of a group of mainly farm households in a Philippine watershed. Part of the project involves scientists engaging in applied research on water quality, soil management, and forest management by community members. The methods used to disseminate and acquire feedback on this research are mainly very informal. The output of the information exchange is hard to quantify, and moreover, attribution to the project is problematic when similar information may emanate from several sources and find its way to individuals by numerous paths. We report on a survey in which we attempted to minimize these difficulties.
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    Can trade liberalization have environmental benefits in developing country agriculture? A Sri Lankan case study
    Bandara, J.; Coxhead, Ian (New York, N.Y.: North Holland, 1999)
    In this article, the authors discuss the impact of trade policy reforms and related policies on land allocation between several crops in an agricultural economy, with a focus on the degree of erosion caused by different crop types. The prediction of land use changes is complicated by the influence of the world market on agricultural exports and the policy distortions at the national level. Likewise, shifts in the agricultural sectors may have economy-wide repercussions through the factor and commodities markets. The authors quantify and evaluate the probable impacts of tariff reduction with an applied general equilibrium model in Sri Lanka. They also analyze the economic and environmental impact of technical progress in the cultivation of tea, a major agricultural export. Both lowering tariffs and enhancing technical progress increase the amount of land allocated to tea, which is environmentally and economically beneficial to Sri Lanka because tea is less erosive than most alternative crops.
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    Conclusions
    Buenavista, Gladys; Coxhead, Ian (Los Banos, Philippines: Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development, 2001)
    Concluding chapter of Seeking Sustainability summarizing the process of natural resources management in the Lantapan watershed.
  • Conducting economic policy analysis at a landscape level: examples from a dynamic model of a Philippine watershed
    Shively, Gerald E.; Coxhead, Ian (2004)
    Given the strong and growing policy concern about high rates of hillside erosion and downstream sedimentation associated with upland agriculture, there is a need for analytical tools that can be easily used by researchers and environmental managers at several levels. In order to help meet this need, this paper presents an approach to policy modeling that emphasizes links between
  • Consequences of a food security strategy for economic welfare, income distribution and land degradation: the Philippine case
    Coxhead, Ian (Elsevier Science Ltd., 2000)
    Like many developing countries, the Philippines pursues a food security strategy in which self-sufficiency and price stabilization feature prominently. In addition to their widely debated welfare effects, food policies based on price and trade restrictions may also accelerate land degradation by promoting expansion of relatively erosive grain crops. The paper explores the welfare and environmental implications of food policies, first with a simple heuristic model, then with an applied general equilibrium model. Comparing market restrictions with technical progress as alternative food policy strategies, it is found that the former increase land degradation and reduce welfare; moreover, anti-poverty and distributional benefits often claimed for such interventions may be illusory [CAB Abstracts 2000].
  • Development and the environment in Asia
    Coxhead, Ian (Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, Australian National University, 2003)
    This paper examines the complex, non-linear relationships between economic growth and environmental degradation that are apparent in the variety of experiences in the recent history of many tropical Asian economies. Numerous factors influence the growth-environment interactions, including the production composition, new techniques and environmental policies, security of natural resource property rights, and pollution regulation and liability. Furthermore, environmental and economic policies are not distinct; any environmental policy also has economic impacts, making it an economic policy by default. Likewise, economic policies must also be assessed as environmental policies; the influence of globalization on Asian economies has had significant environmental impacts. There is growing consensus in economic analyses that environmental degradation harms regional economies. The available literature identifies some of the numerous links between economics and environmental resources.
  • Development and the upland resource base: economic and policy context, and lessons from a Philippine watershed
    Coxhead, Ian (Manila: National Economic and Development Authority, 2002)
    This paper examines the complex, non-linear relationships between economic growth and environmental degradation that are apparent in the variety of experiences in the recent history of many tropical Asian economies. Numerous factors influence the growth-environment interactions, including the composition of production and consumption, new techniques and environmental policies, security of natural resource property rights, and pollution regulation and liability. Furthermore, environmental and economic policies are not distinct; an economic policy on resource allocation is also inherently an environmental policy. The current government trend of decentralizing is increasingly placing the burden of environmental management and policy design on local governments. This is an especially pressing responsibility for communities in Asias uplands, where sustainable natural resource management is urgently needed to reverse the escalating environmental damage resulting from agricultural expansion and intensification.
  • Development policies, resource constraints, and agricultural expansion on the Philippine land frontier
    Coxhead, Ian; Shively, Gerald E.; Shuai, X. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
    This paper addresses the interactions between development policies and upland agriculture expansion with a model of household-level responses to economic and technical factors, based on characteristics of the household and farming system. The authors assess the validity of the model with data from farm households in the region bordering the Mt Kitanglad Range National Park in southern Mindanao, using results of surveying low income corn and vegetable farms. Crop prices and productivity influenced land allocation within a farm, though the different crops generated different influences. Crops were expanded primarily through land substitution and increased input levels, but when prices or productivity of other crops changed, the expansion occurred in the total farm area. The constraints of land and family labor also have varying influences for different crops. The complex interactions and influences of different factors and policies suggest that environmental policies must correspondingly include multiple conditions if they are to effectively mitigate incentives for land expansion.
  • Development strategy, poverty, and deforestation in the Philippines
    Coxhead, Ian; Jayasuriya, S. (2004)
    Most thinking on poverty and deforestation in developing countries does so in terms of the influence of one on the other, in either direction. However, the two have common determinants in the underlying economic and institutional conditions that set factor and product prices and the incentives for migration and natural resource-depleting activities. These determinants include property rights failures (open access to forest lands) but also government failures in the form of economic policies that indirectly promote deforestation and retard poverty alleviation. A general equilibrium approach permits the analytical identification of the influences that such distortions exert on poverty and deforestation pressures. Using a numerical general equilibrium model, we consider the likely effects of the reform of industrial and agricultural protection policy, a key component of modern Philippine economic development strategy, on the determinants of poverty and deforestation.
  • Does nonfarm job growth encourage or retard soil conservation in Philippine uplands?
    Rola, Agnes C.; Coxhead, Ian (Makati City, Philippines: Philippine Institute for Development Studies, 2002)
    This paper examines the impacts that growth in nonfarm job opportunities may have on agricultural practices in the Philippine uplands. One possible scenario is that the increased opportunity cost of farm labor would decrease the use of labor-intensive cultivation. However, this could also cause decrease the use of labor-intensive conservation techniques. The authors use the upland of the Manupali watershed in Bukidnon, Philippines to assess these potential impacts. They find that nonfarm job growth will have the positive long term net impacts on the upland environment. However, they suggest that it is still necessary to support this trend with appropriate agricultural and environmental policies.
  • Economic development and environmental management in the uplands of Southeast Asia: Challenges for policy and institutional development
    Rola, Agnes C.; Coxhead, Ian (International Association of Agricultural Economists, 2005)
    This paper presents a case study from the Philippines to describe the challenges of conflicting environmental concerns and economic forces in the uplands of Southeast Asia. The authors describe the policy and institutional changes that accompanied the transition from traditional subsistence agriculture with long forested fallow periods to rapid forest exploitation and expansion of commercial agriculture in the upland regions of the Philippines.
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    Economic development in the Philippines' uplands: Who wins? Who loses?
    Rola, Agnes C.; Coxhead, Ian; Bagares, I. B.; Villavelez, E. (Laguna, Philippines: University of the Philippines Los Baños. Institute of Strategic Planning and Policy Studies, 2003)
    Both trade liberalization and decentralization hastened economic development in the uplands. Upland dwellers are seen to be increasingly integrated in crop and labor markets. But this economic encroachment on peoples way of lives has differential impacts on various groups of people in the uplands. This paper examines those differential impacts. By using the data from surveys of the SANREM-CRSP Project based in Bukidnon, we find that, in general, the older members of the population and the females are negatively affected by economic development. Social policies at the local level of governance should be in place to secure safety nets for these vulnerable groups. Livelihood opportunities for women and the ageing population could minimize the inequities that economic development brings.
  • Economic incentives for land use change: evidence from Lantapan
    Coxhead, Ian; Demeke, B. (2004)
    Optimal land use and farm area choices depend on crop prices, input prices, family labor, household characteristics, and agro-ecological characteristics. Location in the watershed (e.g. altitude) is important. We can distinguish separate decision units by location for purposes of linking to environmental analyses. We parameterize the model using Lantapan farm survey data from 1994 - 2002.
  • Economic policies and the environment: The case of tree planting on low-income farms in the Philippines
    Shively, Gerald E. (Cambridge, UK ; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1998)
    This paper assesses the influences of economic policies and agricultural prices on farmers' land use decisions and the environmental consequences. The author applies a stochastic dynamic household model to study the tree planting decisions made by small holder farmers in the Philippines. The simulation results reveal that both the relative prices and the variability of the prices significantly influence tree planting choices. Although low-income farmers are wary of the risks of tree crop adoption, the aversion to risk can be with policies that make tree crops more attractive choices. This paper also discusses the influence of cropping patterns on soil erosion and local biodiversity.
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    Economy-wide sources of agricultural expansion in developing countries
    Coxhead, Ian; Southgate, Doug (Geneva, Switzerland: Inderscience Publishers Ltd., 2000)
    This paper examines the environmental problem of deforestation in tropical countries with high levels of persistent poverty. The authors explore reasons why the commencement of development does not cause a decrease in the expansion of agricultural onto fragile land. Pointing to the case study of Thailand, they suggest that changing demands for agricultural productivity and favorable agroclimatic characteristics of frontier lands are significant factors contributing to continued deforestation even when living standards rise. The authors suggest that the creation of off-farm employment opportunities is crucial for making issues of environmental sustainability compatible with rural income growth.