The availability of basic assets influences peasants’ economic behavior, their livelihood diversification strategies and their responses to land degradation. In addition, when pressed by economic hardships households can also expected to work more than better off ones. Whether this implies more...

This article provides a theoretical framework, based on optimal control theory, to analyze farm households' land-use intensification decisions in forest-based shifting cultivation (slash-and-burn) agroecosystems. The main results from the analysis generally coincide with the Population Pressure...

A bioeconomic model is used to explore the potential impacts of price policies on land use under shifting cultivation. The model is calibrated with household level and agroecological data from Yucatan, Mexico. Besides the direct effect of the liberalization of maize prices, the results indicate...

A bioeconomic model is used to explore the potential impacts of price policies on land use under shifting cultivation. The model is calibrated with household level and agroecological data from Yucatan, Mexico. Besides the direct effect of the liberalization of maize prices, the results indicate...

This paper analyses the relationship between rural poverty and soil degradation in the context of a shifting cultivating community. A deterministic optimal control model demonstrates how a representative household's labour allocation affects the natural resource base on which its livelihood...