Environmental Issues and Farming in Developing Countries

Formerly a rich-county preoccupation, dealing more explicitly with environmental concerns around agriculture is becoming a mainstream concern for developing countries. Concerns arise with all the major resources underpinning farming, such as land and water which are selectively reviewed here but most attention is concentrated on the soil resource and carbon sequestration possibilities. The results of some environmental interventions constitute public goods at variously local, regional and global levels and thus provide a rationale for potential engagement for governments and development agencies. INTRODUCTION Environmental issues were seldom mentioned in the same breath as farming when many of us were getting into the business of farm management. Indeed, one can search in vain for any mention of “environment” in the classic farm management textbooks from the 1940s to the 1970s (e.g., Heady and Jensen 1954, Vincent 1962, Rae 1977). But with the emergence of explicit concerns for the environment by the 1980s, things greatly changed in the more-developed countries (MDCs), when all concerned with agriculture had to get serious about addressing such issues, and this has been reflected not only in farm management teaching (e.g., Casavant and Infanger 1984), but has become a major theme (almost an industry in itself) in the scientific, economic, social and policy environments surrounding agriculture (e.g., Cocks 1992, Johnson and Bouzaher 1995, Oliver et al. 1996, Pannell 2001). Progress in the less-developed countries (LDCs) has been slower (e.g., Matlock 1981, Hoben 1996, Pingali, Hossain and Gerpacio 1997, Jodha 1998, Leach, Mearns and Scoones 1999), and is yet more shallow in the treatment accorded such issues, notwithstanding many rallying calls (e.g., Harrison 1987, Conway and Barbier 1990, Cleaver and Schrieber 1994, Cleaver 1997, Anderson 2002) and the profound significance they have in many situations, as will be partially charted in what follows. Perhaps, through matters related to incomes and public debate, much of agriculture in the developing world has yet to reach the “environmental transition” (Antle 1994)? There are, of course, many pressures on LDCs to “conform” to MDC “reforms” in the environmental domain, including from much of the international development community, such as the World Bank. Given my role in the Bank, and by way of further introduction, let me draw from two of the Bank’s recent analyses of strategic imperatives. In the first, Vision to Action (World Bank 1997) featured among its major goals Sustainable natural resource management and included among its guidelines “Security of land and water rights is actively promoted. Restricting land rentals hurts the poor, so their access may need protection. Land reform is needed where land distribution is highly unequal. Decentralized, participatory and marketassisted approaches to land reform are preferred. ... On the global environmental agenda, the Bank is mainstreaming the relevant international conventions including the Convention to Combat Desertification, and the Conventions on Climate