The Role of Demography and Markets in Determining Deforestation Rates Near Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar

The highland forests of Madagascar are home to some of the world's most unique and diverse flora and fauna and to some of its poorest people. This juxtaposition of poverty and biodiversity is continually reinforced by rapid population growth, which results in increasing pressure on the remaining forest habitat in the highland region, and the biodiversity therein. Here we derive a mathematical expression for the subsistence of households to assess the role of markets and household demography on deforestation near Ranomafana National Park. In villages closest to urban rice markets, households were likely to clear less land than our model predicted, presumably because they were purchasing food at market. This effect was offset by the large number of migrant households who cleared significantly more land between 1989–2003 than did residents throughout the region. Deforestation by migrant households typically occurred after a mean time lag of 9 years. Analyses suggest that while local conservation efforts in Madagascar have been successful at reducing the footprint of individual households, large-scale conservation must rely on policies that can reduce the establishment of new households in remaining forested areas

Development of Peasant Farms in Central Russia

The article looks at peasant farms in Tambov Oblast, a typical Central Russian region, discussing the legal framework for private farming, the regional land policies, and the socio-economic factors that encourage or inhibit the development of peasant farms. The data collected in an ongoing original survey are used to analyse the growth of peasant farms, the use of inputs, the activity portfolio, the level of commercialisation, and the efficiency of production during 1992–2002. The conclusion is that, under the prevailing conditions, individual farming cannot be expected to expand beyond its limited present scope by attracting broader strata of the rural population. Comparative Economic Studies (2005) 47, 101–114. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100079

Household Demography and Early Childhood Mortality in a Rice-Farming Village in Northern Laos

<div><p>This paper extends Alexandr Chayanov’s model of changing household demography (specifically the ratio of food consumers to food producers) and its influence on agricultural behavior so that it includes possible adverse effects of a rising ratio on nutritional status and early childhood mortality within the household. We apply the model to 35 years’ worth of longitudinal demographic and economic data collected in the irrigated-rice growing village of Na Savang in northern Laos. When appropriate controls are included for other household variables, unobserved inter-household heterogeneity, and changes in local conditions and national policy over the study period, the analysis suggests that a unit increase in the household’s consumer/producer ratio induces something like a nine-fold increase in the risk of death among household members aged less than five years. Monte Carlo simulation studies suggest that this may be an over-estimate but also that the effect is probably real and likely to be an important factor in household demography. At the very least, the results suggest that Chayanov’s model still has theoretical relevance and deserves to be revived.</p></div

Individual Farming as a Labour Sink: Evidence from Poland and Russia

In Poland and Russia, which provide two widely different examples of transition countries, small-scale individual farms employ more labour per hectare of land than large-scale corporate farms without suffering from lower productivity. Individual farming is a labour sink for the rural population, and land policies promoting individualization of agriculture in transition countries can alleviate the social consequences of rural unemployment without sacrificing agricultural productivity. Pending long-term development of nonagricultural employment opportunities, the average transition country should encourage the rural population to remain in agriculture by emphasising individual rather than corporate farming. Comparative Economic Studies (2005) 47, 675–695. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100068