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Uncovering the Root Causes of SoilErosion in the PhilippinesLaura Schmitt Olabisi aa Department of Community , Agriculture, Recreation and ResourceStudies, Michigan State University , East Lansing , Michigan , USAPublished online: 29 Jul 2011.

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Uncovering the Root Causes of Soil Erosionin the Philippines

LAURA SCHMITT OLABISI

Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and ResourceStudies, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

Soil erosion is a serious threat to the sustainability of agricultural systems in thePhilippines, as in many intensively cultivated regions of the developing world, yetthe ultimate causes of erosion are complex and poorly understood. If erosion is tobe addressed adequately by farmers and policymakers, the root causes must be dealtwith. Most approaches to erosion in the literature and in practice hypothesize thaterosion may be adequately controlled at the farm level through the use of appropri-ate technologies. In this study, farmers and key stakeholders with knowledge of theupland agricultural system in the Philippines pointed to a more systemic understand-ing of the root causes of erosion, which implicated poverty and landlessness asprimary drivers. The technical knowledge of erosion researchers must be broughttogether with the systemic understanding of agricultural workers ‘‘on the ground’’if a sustainable soil management strategy is to be created.

Keywords agricultural sustainability, conservation, erosion, Philippines,sustainability science, systems thinking

Soil erosion has been considered one of the Philippines’ worst environmentalproblems and a serious threat to the country’s agricultural sustainability (Tujan2000). The Philippines is highly susceptible to soil erosion, given its steep topogra-phy, heavy rain events, and deforested uplands. Given that 37% of the Philippinelabor force is employed in the agricultural sector and that the Philippines has a goalof self-sufficiency in rice production, erosion and land degradation also have seriousconsequences for the country’s economic and social well-being.

In order to implement sustainable solutions to the erosion problem, policy-makers and scientists need to understand erosion’s root causes. Several approachesto understanding the causes of erosion have been advanced in the extensive body ofliterature on the topic.

The majority of erosion research in the developing world comes out of farm-levelstudies in the field and at agricultural experiment stations. Many studies focus on thereasons why farmers choose to adopt soil conservation strategies or not, citing lackof knowledge, lack of land tenure, or economic or labor costs as barriers to theimplementation of soil conservation strategies (Alfsen et al. 1996; Cramb et al.

Received 5 February 2009; accepted 9 August 2010.Address correspondence to Laura Schmitt Olabisi, Department of Community, Agricul-

ture, Recreation and Resource Studies, Michigan State University, 151 Natural Resources,East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. E-mail: schmi420@msu.edu

Society and Natural Resources, 25:37–51Copyright # 2012 Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0894-1920 print=1521-0723 onlineDOI: 10.1080/08941920.2011.563435

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1998; Graves et al. 2004; Lapar and Pandey 1999; Nelson and Cramb 1998;Pattanayak and Mercer 1998). The main reasoning behind these farm-level studiesis that erosion could be controlled if only farmers implemented appropriate technol-ogies (such as terraces or cover cropping) or cropping strategies (such as planting lesserosive tree crops). The assumption is that erosion is best controlled through deci-sions made by individual farmers. Erosion controls are not implemented becausehigh commodity prices for crops grown in upland regions, combined with highdiscounting of the future by poor farmers, are assumed to lead farmers to cultivatetheir land to the point of degradation (Coxhead and Demeke 2004).

Another approach to the causes of soil erosion in the developing world uses thelens of political economy to explore the limited agency of farmers to prevent ero-sion, given broader economic and political structures (Blaikie 1985). This politicaleconomy approach differs from the farm-level literature in that it sheds light on thepower dynamics and lack of political or social agency that often keep farmers in thedeveloping world from implementing environmentally sound practices. Morerecently, the field of political ecology has drawn on both political economy andthe biophysical sciences, particularly ecology, to examine the power dynamicsand political relationships behind environmental change in the developing world(Bryant 1997). The application of political ecology to the particular problem of soilerosion in the Philippines remains limited, beyond Blaikie’s seminal text on thesubject.

Finally, some recent projects have taken a spatial, landscape-level approach tothe causes of soil erosion by analyzing the effects of land use change, populationgrowth, and shifts in livelihood on soil erosion (Coxhead and Buenavista 2001). Thisapproach is important because it puts the soil erosion problem in a larger ecosystemand human systems context. Erosion is revealed to be the product of demographicpatterns (high rates of population growth in rural areas) and of cropping patternsdriven by agricultural prices on the global market. These landscape-scale approachesalso allow for the introduction of spatial hydrologic modeling, which can revealwhich areas of the landscape have a disproportionate impact on runoff and off-siteerosion impacts (Walter et al. 2000).

While each of these approaches to understanding the causes of soil erosion(farm-level, political economy=ecology, and landscape) contributes somethingimportant to the discussion of this critical environmental problem, each tends tooperate in relative isolation without reference to the others. In addition, only afew erosion studies have asked farmers for their ideas about the causes and potentialsolutions for soil erosion. This lack of consultation with the group of peopleintimately familiar with the issue of erosion may be one reason why the problempersists, despite decades of research and programs aimed at encouraging farmersto adopt soil conservation strategies (Cramb et al. 2000). Conversely, while the fieldof political ecology has advanced the notion that beginning an investigation of theproblem with farmer and stakeholder voices is important, this literature is poorlyintegrated with the wealth of technical and scientific knowledge on soil erosion heldby scientists, agronomists, and farmers themselves (Walker 2005).

A systemic view of the causes of soil erosion, incorporating the voices andknowledge of both farmers and scientists, and being oriented toward on-the-groundactions and solutions, could bring new perspective to the root causes of soil erosionin the developing world and consequently lead to effective solutions for soil erosion(Roque et al. 2000). This type of approach has been promoted in the emerging field

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of sustainability science, which emphasizes cogeneration of knowledge betweenscientists and stakeholders, synthetic approaches that integrate the social and naturalsciences, and action-oriented research informed by theoretical understanding (Clarkand Dickson 2003). A sustainability science approach has important precedents inthe literature, particularly in the fields of political ecology and ecodevelopment.Political ecology, as described earlier, concerns itself with the power relations andcolonial history that underlie many developing country environmental problems,but also engages with natural scientists around ecological aspects of those problems(Armitage 2002; Bryant 1997). Ecodevelopment proposes the integration of environ-mental concerns with development and the surfacing of goals and values held bystakeholders in the development process (Colby 1989; Riddell 1981). Sustainabilityscience builds on these prior efforts by advocating the integration of scientific under-standing with local knowledge while privileging neither, and emphasizing theinherent dynamism of complex human and ecological systems (Ostrom 2007).

My objectives for this study were twofold. The first was to test empirically thehypotheses underlying a farm-level approach to the causes of erosion, in order todetermine whether erosion is in fact a problem that may be addressed technically.I hypothesized that the empirical evidence would not support a purely technicalexplanation for the severity of erosion in the Philippine uplands (e.g., farmers aren’timplementing enough on-farm erosion control strategies).

Assuming that my hypothesis would be supported, my second objective was tobegin a new research and policy discussion around soil erosion in the Philippines byuncovering its root causes. Using the framework of sustainability science as a guide,a critical first step to understanding soil erosion in the upland Philippines is touncover the perceptions and judgments of stakeholders familiar with the problem.Rather than assuming that researchers and technicians understand the problemand what should be done about it, I proposed to observe how farmers were dealingwith soil erosion and how they understood it.

Field Site

Negros Island, located in the central Philippines as seen in Figure 1, is an ideallocation for an erosion study. Thirty-five percent of the island’s land area ofapproximately 1.2 million hectares consists of erodible uplands of greater than18% slope. As in many areas of the Philippines, the distribution of agriculturallands disadvantages the poor (Riedinger 1995). For example, sugarcane (Saccharumofficinarum) lands on Negros are heavily skewed in distribution, with 78.8% of theland owned by the wealthiest 4% of the population (Lopez-Gonzaga and Banas1986). Sugarcane is a major crop on the island—area harvested in sugarcaneaccounted for 17% of the island’s land area in the 2006–2007 season (PhilippineBureau of Agricultural Statistics 2007). Moreover, sugarcane accounts for around40% of Negros’s agricultural land with slopes under 5%, so the effects of thisunequal distribution are exacerbated by sugarcane farmers having access to themost fertile and least erodible land (Schmitt 2006). This is because of the island’shistory as a center of Philippine sugar production beginning in the mid-1800s, dur-ing which time land-grabbing by Spanish nobles was sanctioned by the colonialgovernment for the purpose of building the country’s sugar export industry. Manylarge-scale landowners on Negros today are the descendents of these Spanish nobles(Lopez-Gonzaga 1987).

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Negros is a poor island; Phillippine administrative regions 6 and 7, which includethe two provinces of Negros, had an incidence of families below the subsistence thresh-old of 22.1 and 22.5%, respectively, compared with a 16.7% incidence as the nationalaverage in the 2000 census (National Statistics Office of the Philippines 2009). Thelandscape of Negros, which was predominantly tropical seasonal forest as recentlyas the 1950s, has already been dramatically changed through deforestation and inten-sive agriculture, with adverse consequences for the island’s biodiversity, water quality,and forest resources. By some estimates, 95% of the island’s original forest cover hasbeen removed (Lopez-Gonzaga 1994). Negros Island, therefore, displays the typicalproblems facing agricultural systems in the Philippines (high poverty rates, soilerosion, rural–urban migration, and deforestation).

Negros Island is located between 9� and 11� N and between 122.5� and 123.5� E.The island has a maximum elevation on the central mountain range of 2435m, and atropical climate with a rainy season that typically lasts from June through Octoberor November. Because of Negros’s variable topography, rainfall patterns varywidely throughout the island; the average annual rainfall can reach 2300mm insouthern Negros. Average monthly temperatures are typically between 26 and28�C. Island soils originate from volcanic or alluvial deposits, or from limestoneweathering (Philippine Department of Agriculture 1989). Alluvial and volcanic soilsare typically more fertile than limestone-derived soils, which were predominant inthe survey area for this study.

Figure 1. A map of the Philippines, depicting the location of Negros Island and the studyregion.

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Methods

The specific study site was chosen to provide a transect of slope, farm size, anddistance from major roads, to represent the diversity of Philippine agriculture, andto test the proposed hypotheses with as diverse a sample as possible. We locatedthe transect origin on Negros’s central plain adjacent to the main highway thatbisects the island, and its terminus in a remote village (three hours’ walk from themain highway). We interviewed a total of 387 households, of which 359 wereinvolved in farming (the others held exclusively nonagricultural jobs, or worked aslaborers in sugarcane fields and did not make cultivation decisions). All of theinterview villages were located in the same barangay,1 Bato, in the municipality ofMabinay. The study area contained a representative sample of the island’s agricul-tural patterns and all of the major crops grown on Negros, with a large range intopography, farmer affluence, and farm size. The area was intensively cultivated;main agricultural products included maize (Zea mays), rice (Oriza sativa), sugarcane(Saccharum officinarum), and coconut (Cocos nucifera). Other crops grown includedcassava (Manihot esculenta) and other root crops, banana (Musa spp.), and vegeta-bles. According to the household-level data we collected in Bato, the average house-hold income was approximately US$570 annually, compared with US$1800 for theregion (National Statistics Office of the Philippines 2005). The average farm size was1.8 ha, also according to the household-level data.

All of the households in the five selected villages were interviewed. If the adultsprimarily responsible for cultivation decisions were not present in the home when wevisited, we either visited them in their place of work (typically, their fields) orreturned to the home later to interview them. Interviews typically took between 15and 30 minutes, and were conducted in the local dialect by myself and three localfield assistants. We followed the interview with an on-site farm visit, during whichwe measured the slope of the plot and recorded which soil conservation technologieswere in place. During the semistructured interviews, we collected physical and socio-economic information, including variables used in the farm-level soil erosion litera-ture to explain farmers’ failure to adopt soil conservation technologies: land tenurestatus, farm income, and farmer knowledge (years of experience farming and attend-ance at informational workshops were used as proxies). We asked farmers about soilconservation techniques used and whether these techniques were effective. We alsoasked open-ended questions about the ultimate causes of erosion (a sample surveyin English is included as Appendix A). Farmer decisions to implement soil conser-vation technologies were analyzed using binary logistic regression. Both full andreduced forms of the statistical regression may be seen in Tables 1 and 2. The vari-ables included in the regression were as follows. Market ratio indicates the ratio ofthe household’s production for sale at local or regional markets to the household’sproduction for home consumption. Irrigation is a binary variable, with 1 indicatingthat at least one plot is irrigated, and 0 indicating that all farm plots are rain-fed.Nitrogen per hectare was calculated over the entire farm, using kilograms of fertilizerapplied and proportion of nitrogen by the type of fertilizer. Organic fertilizer=hectarerepresented the amount of organic fertilizers (animal manure) applied to farm landin kilograms per hectare. Erosion perception is a binary variable, with 1 indicating afarmer who stated that erosion was one of his=her main challenges as a farmer, and 0indicating a farmer who did not mention erosion in responding to this question (seeAppendix A for the precise wording of this survey question). Slope is the average

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slope of all cultivated plots, in degrees. Village is a dummy variable coding for thefive sampled villages. Household members is the number of household members.Farm size is the combined size of all cultivated plots, in hectares. Years of experienceindicates the number of years of farming experience of the household memberprimarily responsible for farm cultivation. Workshop attendance is a count variableindicating the number of workshops on farming techniques the respondent hasattended. Number of plots is the number of plots cultivated by the respondent; inthe study area, this ranged from 1 to 12. Weighted animals is the total number ofgoats, pigs, cattle, horses, and water buffalo owned by the respondent, weightedby these animals’ relative farm gate prices (Philippine Bureau of AgriculturalStatistics 2004a; 2004b; 2004c; 2004d). Ownership status is a binary variable,with 1 indicating legal ownership, and 0 indicating the cultivator is squatting,

Table 1. Output from the full logistic regression model depicting soil conservationadoption

Soil conservation adopters: 235; Nonadopters: 124

Predictor Coefficient p Odds ratio

Constant �1.04672 .117Market ratio �0.15073 .719 0.86Irrigation 0.20948 .666 1.23Nitrogen per hectare �0.00083 .704 1.00Organic fertilizer=ha �0.00058 .918 1.00Erosion perception 0.65513 .084a 1.93Slope 0.02360 .137 1.02Village 0.07263 .675 1.08Household members 0.01711 .802 1.02Farm size 0.11875 .281 1.13Years of experience �0.00271 .753 1.00Workshop attendance 0.36758 .016a 1.44Number of plots 0.75853 .001a 2.14Weighted animals �0.01638 .213 0.98Ownership status �0.20497 .506 0.81Household income �0.00001 .228 1.00People per hectare 0.00200 .938 1.00Rice �1.49718 .001a 0.22Sugar �0.39341 .360 0.67Maize 0.01966 .959 1.02Tree crops �0.63283 .148 0.53Legumes �0.78483 .415 0.46Cassava 0.05657 .946 1.06Root crops �1.68464 .206 0.19Log-likelihood¼�179.113Test that all slopes are 0: p value¼ .000Measures of association concordant pairs¼ 80.7%

Note. See text for a description of the variables.aSignificant at a¼ .1.

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sharecropping, renting, or leasing the land. Household income includes both on- andoff-farm income, in Philippine pesos. People per hectare is the number of people inthe household divided by the total farm area. Rice, sugar, maize, tree crops, legumes,cassava, and root crops (all root crops besides cassava) are variables representing theproportion of the farm devoted to these crops; these variables therefore rangebetween 0 and 1.

Another series of semistructured interviews was conducted with stakeholdersknowledgeable about the agricultural sector on Negros, including employees ofprovincial agencies for the environment and natural resources (one individual), agri-culture (one individual), and agrarian reform (one individual); employees of nongo-vernmental organizations with a focus on agriculture (two individuals); local electedofficials including the mayor, barangay captain, and barangay officers (six indivi-duals); and local health-care workers (two individuals). Interview subjects were selec-ted based on the recommendations of area residents that emerged during thehousehold survey and a preliminary data-gathering visit to the region, and the inter-view subjects themselves also recommended other people to speak to. These inter-views were semistructured and mainly conducted in English (Wengraf 2001).Interviews were typically started with the question, ‘‘What do you see as the cause(s)of soil erosion on farms here in upland Negros?’’ At some point interviewees wereasked, ‘‘Do you think soil erosion is a problem? Why or why not?’’ The follow-upquestions were contingent on the interviewee’s initial response to these questionsand were different in each interview.

Results and Discussion

In contrast to the hypotheses behind most farm-level erosion studies (that erosion iscaused primarily by farmers’ failure to implement appropriate technology), 65% offarmers in the study, representing 74% of the approximately 650 ha of cultivated landin the study area, used some kind of technology or practice designed to preventsoil erosion, as seen in Figure 2. Of those farmers who adopted soil conservation

Table 2. Output from the reduced logistic model depicting soil conservationadoption

Soil conservation adopters: 235; Nonadopters: 124

Predictor Coefficient p Odds ratio

Constant �0.45054 .130Erosion perception 1.10905 .001a 3.03Workshop attendance 0.16835 .156 1.18Number of plots 0.65718 .000a 1.93Rice �1.96694 .000a 0.14Log-likelihood¼�190.327Test that all slopes are 0: p value¼ 0.000Measures of association concordant pairs¼ 73.1%

Note. See text for a description of the variables.aSignificant at a¼ .1.

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technology, these technologies were used on 92% of their land area, on average.Eighty percent of farmers who adopted soil conservation technologies used themon all of their land—in other words, farmers who used these technologies tendedto use them consistently and extensively. These technologies included terracing,constructing an erosion barrier, fallowing, cover cropping, and using green manure.Rates of soil conservation technology adoption reached 78% on slopes above 30%(90% of the land in this slope category); incredibly, cultivated lands in the study areahad slopes ranging above 60%. Farmers cultivating steeper slopes also tended to usemore soil conservation technologies than farmers on low slopes (an average of 1.1technologies adopted by farmers on slopes of less than 3%, compared with anaverage of 2.4 technologies adopted by farmers on slopes greater than 30%).Twenty-six percent of all farmers surveyed, and 47% of farmers on slopes greaterthan 30%, used terracing to prevent erosion. Terracing is commonly recommendedas one of the most effective erosion control techniques (Presbitero et al. 1995). Takentogether, these statistics indicate that farmers are aware of the erosion problem andare doing something about it.

A simple correlation matrix (seen in Table 3) revealed no link between farmerland tenure status, income, or farming experience and implementation of soil conser-vation technology. These variables represent the characteristics of farmers com-monly used by economists to explain decisions to use soil conservation technology(Cramb et al. 1998; Pattanayak and Mercer 1998; Coxhead and Demeke 2004).However, in this study area there is apparently no relation between farmers’ tenurestatus, wealth, or knowledge (as measured by years of farming experience) and theirdecision to conserve soil.

When farmer decisions to implement soil conservation technology were analyzedusing a binary logistic regression, significant terms at the a¼ .1 level includedworkshop attendance, number of plots, perception of the erosion problem, andproportion of land devoted to rice cultivation (see Tables 1 and 2). Attendance at

Figure 2. Soil conservation adoption rate by slope class in the study area. Adoption rates werehigher on steeper slopes, but soil conservation strategies were adopted by the majority offarmers throughout the study area.

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training workshops improves farmer knowledge, which is one of the variablesposited by some researchers to influence farmer adoption of soil conservation techni-ques (Garcia et al. 2002; Lapar and Pandey 1999; Cramb et al. 2007). However, asmentioned earlier, knowledge gained through farmers’ experience ‘‘in the field’’ seemsto have less impact on their soil conservation decisions. A positive influence of plotnumber on conservation technology adoption is logical. Because farmers’ implemen-tation of technologies was summarized across their entire farm, the more plots a famercultivates, the more likely it is that he=she will implement soil conservation technolo-gies. Rice farmers in the central Philippines cultivate paddy rice, which does not typi-cally require soil conservation measures. Farmers’ income or tenure status did notappear to affect their decisions to implement soil conservation technologies.

When farmers were asked whether the soil conservation technologies they imple-mented were effective at preventing erosion, 30% of all technology adopters said theywere not, while 36% of farmers on slopes greater than 15%, and 24% of farmers usingterracing, claimed ineffectiveness. These responses could demonstrate that evenfarmers who are following the recommendations of agricultural extension programsand agricultural experts are still experiencing intolerable rates of erosion. Alterna-tively, this could indicate that farmers are not effectively designing or maintainingthe terraces. However, soil conservation strategies such as terracing have almostnever been tested on slopes steeper than about 25% (Dano 1992); their effectivenessunder these conditions is unclear. The most commonly cited reason for the ineffec-tiveness of soil conservation technologies was land steepness.

Interviews with key stakeholders in provincial and local government and nongo-vernmental organizations revealed a wide variety of perceptions about the causes oferosion. An interesting pattern emerged in which officials at higher levels of govern-ment, who in general have less direct contact with farmers and farming practices,tended to blame farmers for high rates of erosion. Farmers themselves, as well asnongovernmental organization (NGO) workers and local officials, commonlypointed to more systemic causes of erosion, such as poverty, landlessness, and popu-lation growth. It may be that farmers, NGO workers, and local officials (most ofwhom are farmers themselves) are reluctant to accept blame for the problem. Analternative explanation is that farmers are more aware of the on-the-ground situ-ation than provincial officials; they know that they are implementing strategies todecrease erosion, and that these strategies are insufficient because of the extraordi-narily steep slopes they cultivate.

The surveyed farmers and other stakeholder interviewees identified a varietyof ultimate causes of soil erosion; Figure 3 indicates that most agreed that the

Table 3. Relation of key independent variables to soil conservation practices

Correlation coefficient

Independentvariable

Any technologyadoption

Number oftechnologies

Adoption ofterraces

Ownership status �0.17 �0.17 �0.06Workshop attendance �0.02 �0.02 0.02Years of experience 0.01 �0.04 �0.02Household income �0.13 �0.12 �0.09

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proximate cause was the number of people farming on extremely steep, marginalland. This situation was commonly viewed as a product of the Philippines’ colonialland use history and high rates of landlessness among poor families. Farmers whocan’t afford land rights on flat, quality land and who have limited education andskills must supplement their living farming on marginal lands, even if they havemembers of their household working in a remote location or as farm laborers (typi-cally, these jobs pay too little to sustain a family). In many cases, these farmers aresquatting on land owned by the government or by absentee landowners (one-third ofthe survey respondents were in this situation). The land is ultimately unsuitable forcultivation, and many of the farmers who used erosion prevention technologies butfound them ineffective asserted that, in spite of their best efforts at soil conservation,erosion is severe.

Another critical aspect of the erosion problem identified by many interviewrespondents is that it involves multiple actors with different agencies and agendasmaking decisions at multiple scales. All of these decisions impact the erosivity ofthe agricultural landscape by affecting what crops are planted, where they areplanted, and what type of technologies farmers use on their land, yet the multipleinterlocking effects of these decisions are almost never considered or even mentionedin the literature on erosion. Furthermore, interactions between the actors makingthese decisions rarely occur on the ground. This may explain the disagreementsurrounding the ultimate causes of erosion among the interview respondents.

Conclusions and Further Directions

Erosion in the upland Philippines—when it is addressed at all—is still beingtreated as a problem with straightforward economic or technical solutions, whenevidence from the field suggests that it is a complex problem that threatens uplandsustainability. The disconnect between the observations of Philippine farmers and

Figure 3. Conceptual map of the root causes of erosion, drawn from interviews with farmersand key stakeholders on Negros Island, Philippines.

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the causes of erosion advanced in the agronomy=development economics literature isa major barrier to addressing soil erosion effectively. For example, the government’sMedium Term Development Plan, while categorizing 46% of the country’s land areaas moderately to severely eroded, contains no specific recommendations for combat-ing erosion. The Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources, in adescription of its offices, programs, and projects, identifies ‘‘soil conservation andwatershed management’’ as a funded institutional priority (Philippine Departmentof Environment and Natural Resources 2002). The proposed measures to combatsoil erosion are listed as ‘‘establishment of vegetative measures, construction ofstructural measures, plantation establishment and other activities’’ (2). Farmers inthe study area were already doing many of these things—yet the erosion problempersists. These methods of addressing soil erosion may be classified as technical solu-tions; there is no mention of the broader land distribution and systemic aspects of theproblem detailed by farmers in the field. The World Bank lists only one activelyfunded project in the Philippines with an erosion focus; this project is located inthe metropolitan Manila area, and is designed to improve the Laguna de Bay water-shed (World Bank 2002). There are no currently funded projects addressing erosionin the rural uplands, although 25% of farmers in the upland study area, and 34%of farmers cultivating slopes greater than 8%, described soil erosion as one of thegreatest problems they face as farmers.

In contrast to the agronomy=development literature on soil erosion, the politicalecology literature has pointed out the more systemic causes of soil erosion, includingpoverty and landlessness, in the developing tropics generally (Zimmerer 1993; Blaikie1985). However, an analysis of the power dynamics and social=political structuresbehind the soil erosion problem has not been conducted in the Philippines. More-over, it seems that the political ecologists are not interacting with the agronomists,economists, and extension workers who are primarily responsible for dealing withthe problem of erosion; there is no evidence of an integrated approach that combinessocial theory with rigorous ecological and agronomic knowledge.

As long as researchers and policymakers in the federal government and theWorld Bank, who have the most access to sources of funding and support to combaterosion, either neglect to engage the erosion problem or believe that it may beaddressed using only technical solutions, the ultimate causes of erosion as describedby farmers and on-farm workers will not be tackled. These ultimate causes includelandlessness and lack of rural jobs that force poor farmers to farm on marginal landrather than seeking other forms of employment, and a rapidly growing populationcompeting for a limited land base. This is not to suggest that a focus on farm-leveltechniques to control erosion is never appropriate or worthwhile. Farm-level effortsto prevent soil erosion are effective in most cases, as evaluated by farmers who usethem. The survey results indicated that farmers who attend educational workshopsmay be more likely to use soil conservation techniques. However, while farmersare aware of farm-level techniques to control erosion, and use them, researchersand policymakers are seemingly unaware of the need for a wider variety ofapproaches that might be employed to address erosion’s root causes, includingpoverty and landlessness. At least some of these root causes have been describedin the political ecology and landscape literature on soil erosion, but a comprehensiveframework for addressing them has not yet been advanced.

With various actors making decisions affecting erosion at different spatial andtemporal scales, there is a clear need for coordination and learning across these

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decision realms if erosion is to be combated effectively. The ultimate causes oferosion are multiple, complex, and dynamic, and most likely will not be solved byany singular entity. The results of this study suggest that farmers have a more sys-temic view of soil erosion’s causes, while researchers and policymakers at localand provincial levels in the Philippines have technical knowledge, access to funding,and the ability to mobilize people and resources to address social=environmentalproblems on a large scale. All of these elements will be needed to address the erosionissue. Currently, the organizations that come the closest to addressing erosion in asystemic manner are local nongovernmental organizations in the upland Philippineswhose mission is to educate, empower, and organize farmers. Often, these groupsaddress the ecological, economic, and social aspects of erosion. However, these localNGOs tend to be cash-strapped and limited in the area they cover and the amount ofinfluence they have at higher spheres of control. Other organizations that operate atmultiple scales must become engaged with addressing erosion.

Soil erosion is a serious and persistent problem in the Philippine uplands. Whilethe farm-level technological approaches to controlling erosion advocated by research-ers and policymakers have some merit, the ultimate causes of erosion go beyondfarm-level dynamics and encompass poverty and the political and economic dis-enfranchisement of landless farmers in the Philippines. A comprehensive approachto the problem of erosion must address all of these dynamics, while building relation-ships among decision makers that will lead to a sustainable management system.

Note

1. A barangay is the smallest unit of local government in the Philippines, and may be com-prised of a single neighborhood in an urban area, or of several villages in a rural area,as was the case in the study site.

References

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Appendix A: Survey Questions (English Version)

1. Household Number ________

2. Family Name ______________

3. Date _________

4. Village _______________________

5. How big is the total area you farm?

6. How many years have you been farming on this particular land? How manytotal years have you been farming?

7. Have you ever attended a training seminar or workshop on farming methods?___________ How many times? ______________ Briefly describe the contentof the training:

8. How many separate plots of land do you farm? Please give the approximate areaof each. (For all of the following questions, enter the information in the table onthe next page.).

9. What is your land tenure status for each of these plots?

10. Do you have a title to the plots that you own?

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11. What crops do you grow on each of these plots? Please give all crops if morethan one.

12. Why do you choose to plant these crops?

13. In the past year, how much of each crop did you harvest? Approximately whatpercentage of your harvest did your household consume? what percentage didyou sell? (Ask respondent to answer this question for each crop he=she listed above)

13b. To whom did you sell your crop? ________________

14. What method of cropping do you use for each plot? (More than one might apply.Code: ‘M’¼monocrop; ‘I’¼ intercrop; ‘R’¼ rotation; ‘F’¼ fallow period;‘O’¼ other; explain below)

15. Please give the amount of fertilizer you used on each plot in the past year.

16. What kind of fertilizer did you use on each plot? (Code: ‘C’¼ commercial;‘M’¼manure’; ‘P’¼madpress; ‘G’¼ green manuring; ‘O’¼ other)

17. Do you have any uncultivated land? If so, how many hectares?

18. Are any of your plots irrigated? (Put an ‘I’ in irrigation column)

19. Do you use any of the following techniques on your land? (Code: G¼ greenmanuring; H¼ hedgerows; S¼ ’soil trapping’ with rocks; C¼ contour plowing;N¼ no plow; T¼ terracing)

20. Do you use any other techniques for preventing erosion on your land? Pleasedescribe below.

21. Do you use any other techniques for improving the quality of your soil? Pleasedescribe.

22. Do you think erosion control methods are effective? Why or why not?

23. What is the biggest difficulty you face as a farmer?

24. Number of household animals:_____ Goats _____ Pigs _____Cows _____ Horses _____ Water buffaloes

Plot TenureArea ofPlot

Crop(s)Grown Fertilizer

Kind ofFert. Irrigated Slope

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