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Policymakers and technology development institutions have mostly focused on high-potential farming areas, which have better resource endowments and greater access to markets and infrastructure than less-favored areas. However, in developing nations more than one billion people live in less-favored areas, where, despite disadvantages, appropriate policies and programs can generate high returns and contribute significantly to poverty reduction. IFPRI and its partners’ research in the highlands of Ethiopia shows how poverty and land degradation can be reduced in a less-favored area. Using a bioeconomic model to analyze the effects that land degradation, population growth, stagnant technology, market imperfections, and increased risk of drought have on household production, welfare, and food security, the report gauges how alternative policy choices affect poverty and land degradation. According to the study, land quality and household welfare are both in peril in the Ethiopian highlands.The population in the region could suffer devastating effects if proper policies are not put in place. The bioeconomic modeling approach used in this study can be usefully adapted and applied in many other settings and at larger spatial and socioeconomic scales.

Stein Holden is professor of development economics in the Department of Economics and Resource Management at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

Bekele Shiferaw is a senior scientist with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). He leads several projects on policies for market development, poverty reduction, and sustainable futures in the semi-arid tropics.

John Pender is a senior research fellow at IFPRI. He leads IFPRI’s research program on policies for sustainable development of less-favored lands.

The abstract and report are available for download in PDF format as an entire document or by chapter.

• Full Report
  (PDF 385K)
• Abstract
  (PDF 111K)

• Table of Contents, List of Tables, List of Figures, Foreword, Acknowledgments, and Summary
  (PDF 65K)
• Chapter 1: Introduction
  (PDF 26K)
• Chapter 2: Description of the Case Study Area and Data
  (PDF 33K)
• Chapter 3: The Bioeconomic Model
  (PDF 97K)
• Chapter 4: Methodology
  (PDF 50K)
• Chapter 5: Results and Discussion
  (PDF 113K)
• Chapter 6: Conclusions
  (PDF 25K)
• Appendix A: A Dynamic Non-Separable Farm Household Model for Andit Tid, Ethiopia
  (PDF 73K)
• Appendix B: Seasonality and Labor Allocation in the Model: Example Output for Model Validation
  (PDF 29K)
• References
  (PDF 38K)

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