Conducted by NwSSU
, Started on 2017 -
Completed on 2018
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Up till this time the adoption of agroforestry as a sustainable land use technology has a low adoption in developing countries and among upland farmers in the Philippines particularly in Calbayog Pan-as Hayiban Protected Landscape (CPHPL), Calbayog City, Samar. Unlike many studies in agroforestry adoption which primarily deals with farming technologies and socioeconomic analysis, this study was conducted to analyse the factors of adoption of agroforestry as a sustainable land use practice among upland farmers in exchange for an incentive by participating in the program using economic modelling. A total of 294 upland farmers were randomly chosen as respondents to participate in the survey using a contingent valuation method with WTA approach. As a result, 77.21% of the farmers were willing to accept the incentive in the said program to shift from their current land use practice to agroforestry. In addition, shifting cultivation, with off farm income, age, and bid amount appears to be significant factor in WTA. Thus, policy makers need to be sure that farmers are compensated very well for their service provided to downstream communities. Further, we conducted cost-benefit analysis to determine the economic cost of participating in the program using four base case scenario to model economic trade-offs among upland farmers. Since farming is the bread and butter of this upland communities policy makers need to consider the economic and socio cultural aspect of the community as well as its political involvement. Often, incentive programs from government are lesser compared to the income that farmers would receive from their farming activity. As such, determining the amount to be given is very important because this would add to the success of the program. While it is true that poverty in general and farmer′s income (in particular) is not adequate in explaining land use change, market incentives (e.g. compensation to shift to sustainable land use practice) would enable payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme to be successful. Unlike other agroforestry studies, we argue that the land use practice (e.g. shifting cultivation) should be considered in policy making for incentivizing farmers because aside from income, traditionally and culturally, in Philippines and other developing countries shifting cultivation has been the practice. As such, shifting cultivators needs to have alternative sustainable land use technology (e.g. agroforestry) with proper financing mechanism to properly implement and sustain the program.