Induced Innovation and Productivity-Enhancing, Resource-Conserving Technologies in Central America

Soil erosion is one of the main problems threatening agricultural productivity and small-scale farmers' livelihoods in Central America. Based on two case studies from Guatemala and El Salvador, the adoption of soil conservation techniques by small-scale farmers and the supply of these technologies to farmers are investigated. The Induced Innovation Theory and Logit as well as Structural Equation Models with Latent Variables are utilized to explore farmers' decisions with regard to these environmental innovations. Results demonstrate that technologies that combine productivity enhancing with resource conserving characteristics offer a solution to the overall low adoption of conservation practices observed in the region.

Autorentext

The Author: Monika B. Zurek was born in Bonn in 1967. She studied agricultural biology at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, from 1990 to 1997. From 1992 to 1993 she was an exchange student in the Environmental Biology program at the University of Guelph, Ontario (Canada). She also participated in a number of university courses in Indonesia, West- Africa and Brazil. In 1997 she became a Pre-doctoral Fellow in the Regional Office for Central America and the Caribbean of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre CIMMYT in San José (Costa Rica). There she worked until the middle of 2000 in a research project funded by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation. She returned to the University of Gießen to finalize her Ph.D. thesis in Agricultural Economics. In 2001 she started a new position as one of the Technical Support Staff of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, first based at CIMMYT headquarters in Texcoco (Mexico) and since 2003 at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) in Rome.

Inhalt

Contents: Soil Conservation in Central America - Main Causes and Promoted Solution - Environmental Innovation and Technical Change - Mucuna Adoption by Farmers in the Polochic Valley (Guatemala) - Origin and Use of Soil Conservation Techniques in the County of Nueva Conceptión (El Salvador).