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Implications of agricultural policy for species invasion in shifting cultivation systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2006

HEIDI J. ALBERS ,
MICHAEL J. GOLDBACH  and
DANIEL T. KAFFINE
HEIDI J. ALBERS
Affiliation:
Department of Forest Resources, College of Forestry, 280 Peavy Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, 97331, USA E-mail: heidi.albers@oregonstate.edu
MICHAEL J. GOLDBACH
Affiliation:
Rapt Inc., San Francisco, CA USA
DANIEL T. KAFFINE
Affiliation:
Bren School of the Environment, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA USA
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Abstract

Policies to influence land use decisions in agriculture or grazing can increase the ability of invasive species to out-compete native species and thereby disrupt seemingly stable ecological-economic systems. Building off of models of interdependent resources, invasive species and soil fertility, this paper develops a model of shifting cultivation decisions for two types of farmers, one who sees the threat of invasive grasses and one who does not. The paper uses numerical solutions to this dynamic decision problem to examine the impact of various policies on farmer welfare and on the stability of the economic-ecological system. Some policies undermine the resilience of the system, while other policies augment the system's ability to withstand species invasions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , August 2006 , pp. 429 - 452
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The authors would like to acknowledge the comments of two anonymous reviewers, Peter Vitousek, James Sweeney, Jeffrey Williams, and Elizabeth Robinson and the funding support for Albers and Kaffine from Resources for the Future, for Kaffine from the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0114437, and for Goldbach from the Canadian Natural Science and Engineering Research Council, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, and the Exxon Environmental Education Fund.