Economic impacts of land degradation: Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire

Land degradation poses major environmental and economic problems to Cote d'Ivoire because of the dependence of its economy on agriculture. There is a lot of literature measuring the effects of land degradation on crop productivity or qualitatively describing economic impacts on farmers' livelihoods. However, there is little knowledge available quantifying the economic losses in agriculture due to land degradation within a methodologically rigorous causal framework. Therefore, we evaluate the net farming income reduction caused by land degradation in the Trays ecosystem in Cote d'Ivoire using an instrumental variable two-stage least square-IV method and primary household surveys and soil sampling data collected from 780 farmers in this study area. The findings indicate that soil organic matter (SOM), education, property rights, and farm size squares positively influence the net farming income, while plot slope, erosion, and farm size reduce the net farmer incomes. Specifically, a reduction of 0.07 units on average of the net farming income is observed when the SOM decreases by 1 percentage point. These findings help us draw the attention of the farmers, government, and non-governmental organizations to the necessity of adopting sustainable land management practices to deal with land degradation, and improve farmers' income and the population's welfare through maintaining fertile and healthy soils.