Land Use Planning and Productive Capacity Assessment

The determination of the "productive capacity" of the land is the main component of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' (FAO) Agroecological Zones (AEZ) approach, and it is also an element in the sequence of land evaluation and land use planning as advocated by FAO for use in developing countries. The nature of the subject lends itself to little or no privatization, which is the main theme of the present Symposium. At the international evel specialized scientific institutions and development agencies such as FAO should continue to take the lead. At national and provincial level ministerial and parastatal entities on natural resources inventory, monitoring, and assessment are the logical executing bodies. Usually national soil survey and land evaluation centers take the lead. They may be performing comprehensively in their own right; often they have the broadest and most detailed geo-referenced data bases on natural resources, and are then the first institution to be contacted on the definition of scope and geographic location of envisaged development or conservation projects. However, in many cases they need to be stimulated to obtain the effective cooperation of other national centers such as meteorological departments, remote sensing imagery holding centers, vegetation and land use monitoring institutes, farming system analysis groups, and environmental conservation units. Only in a few cases the need for an integrated and holistic approach to agroecological zoning and land use planning has translated itself into interministerial, multidisciplinary institutions with undisputed responsibility and ensured long-term financial and establishment arrangements.