@article{Barbier:174519,
      recid = {174519},
      author = {Barbier, Bruno},
      title = {Induced innovation and land degradation: Results from a  bioeconomic model of a village in West Africa},
      journal = {Agricultural Economics: The Journal of the International  Association of Agricultural Economists},
      address = {1998-09},
      number = {968-2016-75285},
      pages = {12},
      year = {1998},
      abstract = {This paper introduces a modeling method which simulates a  village's response to population and market pressure. The  method
combines a recursive and dynamic linear programming  model with a biophysical model of soil condition and plant  growth that
predicts yields and land degradation for  different type of land, land use and cropping patterns. The  linear programming model
simulates farmers' plans  aggregated at the village level under constraints of risk  aversion, food consumption, land area, soil
fertility, soil  depth, labor and cash availability. Detailed agroecological  factors determine the main processes of land
degradation. A  large number of technological alternatives, representing  different degrees of labor and/or land-saving
techniques  available in the study areas, are introduced, taking into  account their respective constraints, costs and  advantages.
The method has been calibrated for a village  located in the sub-humid region of Burkina Faso. Several  simulations are carried
out to the Year 2030. The results  show that population pressure leads to intensification and  investment in land conservation
practices but not  necessarily to better farm incomes. Increasing market  opportunities can play a more positive role in  boosting
productivity, but for the next decades the best  way to increase production per farmer is to let farmers  migrate from the highpopulation-
density areas to the  low-population-density areas because, under the current  economic conditions of most Sahelian
countries,  intensification per hectare is stil more expensive than the  fallow system. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All  rights
reserved.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/174519},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.174519},
}