Soil Quality and Agricultural Development

Pierre Crosson

Chapter 57 in Handbook of Agricultural Economics, 2007, vol. 3, pp 2911-2932 from Elsevier

Abstract: This chapter evaluates soil quality and agricultural development. Estimates of soil erosion, in terms of losses to farm income range from a high of $25 billion per year to a low of $100 million per year. Crosson estimates that the $100 million figure is the most reliable. Crosson notes that this estimate is quite low (roughly a quarter of a percent per year) and argues that the Soil Conservation Service in the US invested heavily in programs to prevent soil erosion. Crosson also notes that soil erosion rates in Europe are even lower than soil erosion rates in the U.S. On a global scale, Crosson uses estimates made by Oldeman and associates at Wageningen University and concludes that global estimates of soil erosion are low (the average overall rate of erosion-based damage is 0.1% per year). A comparison of China and Indonesia, confirmed these estimates. In Sub-Saharan Africa where cropland area is still expanding rapidly, soil erosion rates are higher because of insecure property rights in land.

Keywords: Farmers; Farm Production and Farm Markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
ISBN: 0-444-51873-8
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B7P5B ... d9e0f2df9105a2e0fd0b
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:hagchp:5-57

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Handbook of Agricultural Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().