Adoption of soil conservation practices in developing countries: Policy and institutional factors

Soil conservation is an investment in maintaining and enhancing the future productive capacity of the soil. Sustainability of agriculture critically depends on the adequacy of such investments. This paper provides an overview of the policy and institutional determinants of investment in soil conservation with special reference to Asia. The effects of factors such as land tenure, market access, price policies, and macro-economic policies on the incentives to adoption are presented. Non-adoption or limited adoption of soil conservation technologies is often due to lack of enabling policy and institutional environments than to lack of soil conservation technologies per se. The use of subsidies and other forms of incentives to encourage adoption of particular technologies that do not address farmers' concerns adequately leads to non-sustainable adoption. As adoption is conditioned by several factors that vary across locations and among farmers, a thorough understanding of farmers' objectives and their production constraints is necessary for designing suitable interventions. In addition to suitable Policy reforms, a targeted approach to technology development, adaptation, and dissemination is suggested.