IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v92y2020ics0264837718318143.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A scale invariant model for the expansion of agricultural land and government spending on the agricultural sector

Author

Listed:
  • Torres-Rojo, Juan Manuel
  • Francisco-Cruz, Carlos Alberto
  • Islas-Aguirre, Juan Francisco
  • Ramírez-Fuentes, Grodecz Alfredo
  • Pérez-Sosa, Leonardo

Abstract

The expansion dynamics of the agricultural surface is a complex process, since it requires decisions among different actors under a multitude of socioeconomic and natural conditions, expectations, and risks. This paper shows that despite this complexity, and at odds with the intuition, the density of agricultural lands and the government spending to foster agriculture around a human settlement displays a simple power-law relationship regarding the distance to such a settlement. The theoretical proof of this relationship is based on theoretical and empirical findings made by several authors on the expansion of population centers, river networks, species and ecosystem’s distribution. The empirical proof is made by fitting a simple power-law model having as response variables: density of agricultural land; government spending coverage, and government spending per unit of agricultural surface, while the distance to the centroid settlement is used as independent variable. Results show that the scaling exponents of the power-law relationship estimated from those models, with data from rural settlements in Mexico, are similar statistically to the expected values from theoretical models for the three expansion processes tested. Three applications of the scale-invariant attribute characterizing the expansion process of agricultural lands are presented:

Suggested Citation

  • Torres-Rojo, Juan Manuel & Francisco-Cruz, Carlos Alberto & Islas-Aguirre, Juan Francisco & Ramírez-Fuentes, Grodecz Alfredo & Pérez-Sosa, Leonardo, 2020. "A scale invariant model for the expansion of agricultural land and government spending on the agricultural sector," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:92:y:2020:i:c:s0264837718318143
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104438
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718318143
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104438?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Batty & Yichun Xie, 1999. "Self-organized criticality and urban development," Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society, Hindawi, vol. 3, pages 1-16, January.
    2. Geoffrey B. West & James H. Brown & Brian J. Enquist, 1999. "The Fourth Dimension of Life: Fractal Geometry and Allometric Scaling of Organisms," Working Papers 99-07-047, Santa Fe Institute.
    3. Robinson, Warren & Schutjer, Wayne, 1984. "Agricultural Development and Demographic Change: A Generalization of the Boserup Model," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(2), pages 355-366, January.
    4. Stoorvogel, J. J. & Antle, J. M. & Crissman, C. C. & Bowen, W., 2004. "The tradeoff analysis model: integrated bio-physical and economic modeling of agricultural production systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 43-66, April.
    5. Sarah Bowen & Tad Mutersbaugh, 2014. "Local or localized? Exploring the contributions of Franco-Mediterranean agrifood theory to alternative food research," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(2), pages 201-213, June.
    6. Angelsen, Arild, 1999. "Agricultural expansion and deforestation: modelling the impact of population, market forces and property rights," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 185-218, February.
    7. Geoffrey B. West & James H. Brown & Brian J. Enquist, 1997. "A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology," Working Papers 97-03-019, Santa Fe Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. He, Ji-Huan & Liu, Jun-Fang, 2009. "Allometric scaling laws in biology and physics," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 1836-1838.
    2. Brolly, Matthew & Woodhouse, Iain H., 2012. "A “Matchstick Model” of microwave backscatter from a forest," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 237, pages 74-87.
    3. Dalgaard, Carl-Johan & Strulik, Holger, 2011. "Energy distribution and economic growth," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 782-797.
    4. Husmann, Kai & Möhring, Bernhard, 2017. "Modelling the economically viable wood in the crown of European beech trees," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 67-77.
    5. He, Ji-Huan, 2006. "An allometric scaling law between gray matter and white matter of cerebral cortex," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 864-867.
    6. Tao, Yong & Lin, Li & Wang, Hanjie & Hou, Chen, 2023. "Superlinear growth and the fossil fuel energy sustainability dilemma: Evidence from six continents," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 39-51.
    7. Chen, Yanguang, 2017. "Multi-scaling allometric analysis for urban and regional development," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 465(C), pages 673-689.
    8. Peters, Ronny & Olagoke, Adewole & Berger, Uta, 2018. "A new mechanistic theory of self-thinning: Adaptive behaviour of plants explains the shape and slope of self-thinning trajectories," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 390(C), pages 1-9.
    9. GANIO-MEGO, Joe, 2022. "Estimating the human equivalent weight by applying the quarter-power law of allometry to humanity," OSF Preprints 7eq6x, Center for Open Science.
    10. Song, Dong-Ming & Jiang, Zhi-Qiang & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2009. "Statistical properties of world investment networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 388(12), pages 2450-2460.
    11. GANIO-MEGO, Joe, 2022. "Long term world human population, lifespan and GDP growth model based on the in-caput-evolution theory and its impact on the carrying capacity," OSF Preprints dm3jn, Center for Open Science.
    12. Christopher Watts & Nigel Gilbert, 2014. "Simulating Innovation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13981.
    13. Liu, Chuang & Zhou, Wei-Xing & Yuan, Wei-Kang, 2010. "Statistical properties of visibility graph of energy dissipation rates in three-dimensional fully developed turbulence," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(13), pages 2675-2681.
    14. Calabrese, Armando & Capece, Guendalina & Costa, Roberta & Di Pillo, Francesca & Giuffrida, Stefania, 2018. "A ‘power law’ based method to reduce size-related bias in indicators of knowledge performance: An application to university research assessment," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 1263-1281.
    15. Elif Tekin & David Hunt & Mitchell G Newberry & Van M Savage, 2016. "Do Vascular Networks Branch Optimally or Randomly across Spatial Scales?," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(11), pages 1-28, November.
    16. Elliott, Robert J.R. & Sun, Puyang & Xu, Qiqin, 2015. "Energy distribution and economic growth: An empirical test for China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 24-31.
    17. Chen, Yanguang, 2014. "An allometric scaling relation based on logistic growth of cities," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 65-77.
    18. GANIO-MEGO, Joe, 2022. "The instant and historical Preston curves: allometry quarter-power law valid for the humans," SocArXiv y8rbt, Center for Open Science.
    19. Jiang Zhang & Lingfei Wu, 2013. "Allometry and Dissipation of Ecological Flow Networks," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(9), pages 1-8, September.
    20. De Martino, S. & De Siena, S., 2012. "Allometry and growth: A unified view," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(18), pages 4302-4307.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:92:y:2020:i:c:s0264837718318143. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.