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Abstract
Promising ways of promoting sustainable development in less-favored areas have long
been a focus of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Hillside areas
are an important facet of less-favored areas because they often have limited biophysical
potential and attract limited public investment. As a result, poverty, low agricultural productivity,
and natural resource degradation tend to be interrelated problems in such areas. In Honduras,
poverty is deep and widespread, and this is especially the case in the hillside areas—
home to one-third of the country’s population. The majority of these people earn their living
through agriculture, as either smallholders or farm laborers. Rural poverty in the hillsides
results primarily from unequal asset distribution, low factor productivity, insufficient public
investments in infrastructure and services, and vulnerability to natural and economic shocks.
In this research report, authors Hans Jansen, John Pender, Amy Damon, and Rob Schipper
generate important information for use by decision-makers in assessing policy and public investment
options targeted toward increasing agricultural productivity and household income
in hillside areas, at the same time stimulating natural resource conservation. Based on detailed
household- and plot-level survey data, they develop a quantitative livelihood approach and use
it to assess the determinants and effects of household livelihood strategies and land management
decisions in an integrated econometric framework. The authors also demonstrate how
this framework can be used as a policy targeting tool, thus integrating the livelihood strategies
literature with the policy targeting literature.
Even though the results indicate that solutions to poverty in the rural hillside areas of
Honduras are neither easy nor straightforward, the study confirms that agriculture should form
an integral component of rural development strategies in these areas, where the assets held
by many households are limited to unskilled labor and small tracts of owned or rented land.
The results indicate that, in order to raise household incomes, public investment and policy
programs addressing the hillside areas should focus on improved road infrastructure, broader
land access, policies to reduce household size and dependency ratios, and the adoption of land
management technologies—for example, through agricultural extension programs and land
redistribution—to restore soil fertility. While investments in physical assets should be directed
toward households that incorporate off-farm employment or coffee production into their livelihood
strategies, agricultural training programs should target livestock producers.