Robert B. Richardson

Climate change and recreation benefits in an alpine national park.

Weather conditions may affect the quality of an outdoor recreation experience. Quality of the recreation may be reflected in the visitors willingness to pay or their net economic benefits of recreation. We used the contingent valuation method to measure the effects of weather on net willingness to pay (WTP) for trips to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. We used a visitor survey to elicit responses to a dichotomous-choice WTP question and to gather information about recreation activities. Results were analyzed with daily weather data to test for climate effects on recreation benefits. We found that temperature and precipitation were statistically-significant determinants of WTP. We estimated increases in recreation benefits of 4.9% and 6.7% for two climate change scenarios.

An external validity test of intended behavior: Comparing revealed preference and intended visitation in response to climate change

Abstract We compare revealed preference and survey response estimates of changes in National Park visitation behavior from climate change. The revealed preference model is estimated from a time-series regression analysis of past visitation as a function of historic weather variability. We find no statistical difference between the revealed preference regression estimates and intended behavior estimates from a visitor survey for the total number of National Park visits. Confidence intervals for the two models overlap, and the mean estimates of the change in visitation are within 12% of each other. The paper concludes with the implications for natural resource planners and managers who must frequently evaluate the effects of alternative policies before the selection of a preferred alternative, and also must plan for accommodating changes in visitor use.

The contribution of tourism to micro and small enterprise growth

Tourism is an increasingly important economic sector in many developing countries. In Kenya, it represents the second greatest contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) after agriculture. Data from a survey of 449 micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in coastal Kenya were used in a modified Evans growth model to examine the contribution of tourism to the growth of farm and non-farm MSEs. The authors also examined the influence of entrepreneur and business characteristics on the growth of farm and non-farm MSEs along the Kenyan Coast. The age of the business, business income, marital status, number of employees and form of business organization were found to influence MSE growth significantly. Tourist spending and activities were also found to have a significant effect on MSE growth. The results have implications for the role of tourism in economic development, small business growth and poverty alleviation.

Smallholder Farms and the Potential for Sustainable Intensification

The sustainable intensification of African agriculture is gaining momentum with the compelling need to increase food and agricultural production. In Southern Africa, smallholder farming systems are predominately maize-based and subject to erratic climatic conditions. Farmer crop and soil management decisions are influenced by a plethora of complex factors such as market access resource availability, social relations, environment, and various messages on sustainable farming practices. Such factors pose barriers to increasing sustainable intensification in Africa. This paper characterizes smallholder farming practices in Central Malawi, at Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING) project sites. We present findings from a survey of 324 farmers, located within four Africa RISING sites selected in a stratified random manner to represent (1) low agricultural potential (high evapotranspiration, variable rainfall), (2) medium agricultural potential (two sites), and (3) high agricultural potential (well-distributed rainfall). Soil fertility was low overall, and certain farming practices appeared to limit the sustainability of agricultural production. Nearly half of farmers did not value legume residues as a high nutrient value resource for soil amelioration, as legume residues were removed (17.9%) or burned (21.4%). Conversely, maize residues were rarely removed (4.5%) or burned (10.4%). We found that farmers do not allocate soil amendment resources to legume fields (zero instances of mineral fertilizer or manure application to legumes compared to 88 and 22% of maize systems, respectively). Policy makers in Malawi have led initiatives to intensify agricultural systems through subsidizing farmer access to mineral fertilizer as well as maize hybrid seed, and only rarely to improved legume seed. In this survey, farmers allocate mineral fertilizer to maize systems and not legume systems. There is urgent need to invest in education on sustainable reinvestment in natural resources through complementary practices, such as maximization of biological nitrogen fixation through improved legume agronomy and better organic resource and crop residue management. Recent efforts by Malawi agricultural services to promote doubled-up legumes as a sustainable intensification technology are encouraging, but benefits will not accrue unless equal attention is given to an extension campaign on management of organic resources such as crop residues.

A New Economic Framework for Tourism Decision Making

In this article it is argued that the conventional approach of conducting either a micro- or macro-economic analysis in tourism is incongruent with emerging concerns of the modern tourism system which require economic analysis that explicitly considers community as a unit of analysis. This article thus proposes an ecological economics framework for analyzing economic decision making in tourism. This approach assumes that tourism brings costs and benefits to a society with differential effects. Communities are proximate to the benefits or costs of tourism, including externalities or negative impacts which are often associated with tourism growth. Extensions of micro economic models are proposed as an alternative framework for addressing dynamic decision making and tradeoffs in resource use. This is consistent with evolving trends in tourism demand for sustainable products or destinations, and provides important insights into the inherent tradeoffs that tourism stakeholders may need to make in the post modern ‘triple bottom line accounting’ tourism industry.

Rural household participation in markets for non-timber forest products in Zambia

Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) support livelihoods in rural communities through provision of food, fuel, materials, medicines and income from sales. We estimated the contribution of NTFPs to rural household income in Zambia, and used a two-stage tobit alternative model to identify the factors associated with participation in NTFP markets. NTFPs accounted for 35 per cent of household income for participating households, second only to trading. Human capital variables and the value of assets were found to be significant determinants of both participation in business activities related to NTFPs and the associated household income, and the poor were more dependent on NTFPs than wealthier households. The effect of average rainfall underscores the role that NTFPs play in providing a safety net during periods of low crop yields. Rural development policies should recognize the role played by NTFPs in rural livelihoods and the need to balance welfare improvement and sustainable forest management.

Using choice experiments to understand household tradeoffs regarding pineapple production and environmental management in Costa Rica

Choices among environmental management alternatives involve tradeoffs where, for example, the benefits of environmental protection may be offset by economic costs or welfare losses to individual agents. Understanding individual or household-level preferences regarding these tradeoffs is not always straightforward, and it often requires an analysis of choices under alternative scenarios. A household survey was used to gather data for a choice experiment, where respondents were asked to choose among pairs of alternative management scenarios about pineapple production in Costa Rica. The experimental design consisted of six attributes that varied on between two and five attribute levels, and the experiment and accompanying survey were administered orally in Spanish. The results show that respondents are willing to make tradeoffs with respect to the management attributes in order to see an overall improvement in environmental quality. Respondents were willing to accept a moderate level of pesticide application, presumably in exchange for paying a lower cost or seeing a gain in another area, such as monitoring or soil conservation. Buffer zones were significant only in the case of large farms. The results have implications for policy decisions that aim to reflect public attitudes, particularly the aspects of pineapple production that matter most to people living near pineapple plantations. The study also highlights the effectiveness of the choice experiment approach in examining household preferences about environmental management in a rural development context.

Examining the drivers of agricultural experimentation among smallholder farmers in Malawi

Smallholder farmers in Malawi are faced with the challenge of managing complex and dynamic farming systems while also adapting to change within volatile agroecological conditions. Moreover, management decisions are influenced by a combination of local knowledge, expert recommendations and on-farm experimentation. Although many smallholder farmers actively experiment with new crops and technologies, little is known about the prevalence of experimentation or the types of experiments farmers conduct. This study examined the decision-making processes of experimenting farmers to explore the drivers of on-farm experimentation. Using a mixed-methods design that incorporated field observations, survey data and in-depth interviews, we identified numerous examples of experiments with new crops, varieties and techniques that had been executed either independently or through participation in an agricultural development project. Results of quantitative and qualitative analysis reveal that smallholder farmers in Malawi across a range of socioeconomic characteristics are inclined to experiment, and gender roles in agricultural experimentation vary widely. While experimental methods differ between farmers, there are commonalities in the drivers of experimentation, including adapting to climate change, improving soil health, improving nutrition and generating income. Smallholders have a great capacity for experimentation, and their knowledge, experience, preferences and priorities – if properly understood and incorporated – could ultimately benefit both future agricultural development projects and their participants.

Structuring international development decisions: confronting trade-offs between land use and community development in Costa Rica

For more than half a century, research and practice in international development has focused on improving the quality of life of people living in developing regions of the world. Recently, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers have recognized the need to blend insights from experts and community stakeholders in development decisions. Research in the decision sciences tells us that these kinds of multiparty and multiattribute decisions are extremely challenging. However, recent experience using structured decision-making (SDM) approaches suggests that the quality of both expert and stakeholder input, and resulting decisions, can be improved by ensuring that people address a series of basic principles relating to identifying objectives and their associated attributes, estimating the consequences of proposed actions, and directly confronting trade-offs that arise during the evaluation of management alternatives. In this paper, we provide an overview of SDM and then discuss a research initiative aimed at applying the approach to a pressing international development problem in rural Costa Rica: management of the lucrative but also environmentally destructive pineapple industry. The objectives of this research were twofold: First, we sought to help inform policy decisions by eliciting land management preferences regarding the pineapple industry from people living in communities surrounding plantations. Second, we evaluated the effectiveness of the SDM approach in a developing community context.

Preferences for legume attributes in maize-legume cropping systems in Malawi

Adoption rates of leguminous crops remain low in sub-Saharan Africa despite their potential role in improving nutrition, soil health, and food security. In this study we explored Malawian farmers’ perceptions of various legume attributes and assessed how these perceptions affected allocation of land to legume crops using a logit link model. We found high regional variation in both consumption- and production-related preferences, but relatively consistent preferences across samples. While scientific understanding and farmer perceptions were aligned on some topics and for some legumes, there were discrepancies elsewhere, particularly in terms of soil fertility and nutrition. Understanding why these discrepancies exist and where there were potential biases are critical in explaining the extent of adoption. In many cases perceptions of legume attributes may be influenced by the cultural role of the crop in the household, particularly in terms of food security or market-orientation. The findings also suggest that researchers need to look beyond both the agronomic properties and farmers’ preferences to fully understand the extent of adoption. Socioeconomic factors, biases, and marketing concerns may also influence integration of legumes into maize-based cropping systems.