Soil Conservation as Development Policy

The article shows the importance of developing agricultural practices of a preserving nature since such practices have positive effects not only on the degree of agricultural output sustainability but on the income of the producers as well. Land erosion is posed as a real problem to keep up levels of agricultural output. In general, erosion is presented as a negative externality in that its mid- and long term effects fall on the welfare of agents not involved in the production process. Nonetheless, direct producers are also affected because the productivity of the land decreases and hence production-related benefits diminished as time passes. Two complementary actions to counteract erosion and to make an efficient allocation of resources are presented in this article. The first is the use of appropriate technologies and the second one is to consider erosion as a cost of production and that way internalize the damage caused to the land