Referring to deforestation, it is common to say that this phenomenon is "the change of land use." This is absolutely true, because if deforestation is the permanent removal of forest cover, that means the soil will have new coverage, non-forest will be used for anything else. But not much help to understand the causes of deforestation. In other words, if we accept that deforestation is due to land use change, we should investigate the reasons for deciding to change land use. This was a reflection that has occupied many a long time. Some approaches have influenced the analysts and politicians for a long time.
von Thunen model A German economist of the first half of the nineteenth century, Johann von Thünen (1783 - 1850), proposed a model which to date still has great influence. Von Thunen was also an economist, who owns a farm in Mecklenburg, northern Germany and witnessed how forests and other wilderness areas were converted into farmland. The economist noted that wilderness areas closer to the city first became fields, while other areas, but took longer to become soil quality was bad. Then assumed that the rate of conversion of forests and wilderness areas to agricultural land, had a relationship with distance from the center. These ideas led him to propose a model to describe the change deforestation or crop wild areas, depending on the yield of the land, costs of production, market prices, freight costs and distance the market. (1)
According to von Thünen model might be expected that the pattern of land use in a particular place at a time, basically in areas of intensive horticultural and agricultural sites close to an urban center followed by a belt of woods for firewood. Then, as one is distant from the city, find areas devoted to growing grain and fodder, grazing areas and then eventually the wild.
Over time, the model suggests that as the urban population increases, demand for food will grow causing an increase in the prices of agricultural products, that cost would open new areas to cultivation and so, we would see a progress in the areas of greatest human intervention from urban areas in a process of penetration on forest and wildlife areas. Many neo-Malthusian views are this pattern of reasoning. With this approach, we would have to increase in population as the main engine continued progress of the cultivated areas at the expense of forests and wilderness areas.
The role of technology
American agronomist Norman Borlaug (1914 - Sep 2009), approached the problem differently. He suggested that the development of agricultural techniques could make it more abundant and cheaper production to meet growing demand for food and other products. The decrease in prices of agricultural products, discourage producers in marginal areas, which would discourage the opening of land for cultivation in areas with relatively low fertility or relatively difficult access areas. Borlaug won the Nobel Prize in 1970 for being one of the main architects of the "green revolution."
Borlaug's approach we would predict that the areas of agricultural production is concentrated in principle under the most fertile and accessible areas, such as von Thunen model would suggest. However, as the agricultural capacity of a country was developed, agricultural production tend to concentrate more on the most favorable sites, reversing even the opening of marginal land to cultivation in areas that become less competitive as the productivity in high-tech enclaves grow and prices of agricultural products were reduced. From this point of view, we would expect that the dynamics of deforestation itself was linked to population dynamics and growth of demand, but the country's agricultural capacity in question, greatly modified the impact of population demands on forests and wilderness areas.
Before Borlaug, the Danish economist Ester Boserup (1910 - 1999) noted that technology plays a key role in the dynamics of land use. She documented cases in very different contexts, in which after observing a population growth deforestation and some lively demand for agricultural products, the actual growth in population density, creates conditions for technological leaps, or if you will, "revolutions" like Borlaug. These technological leaps, substantially changing the weight factors of von Thünen (yield, production costs, freight and prices) and explain why the race between food production capacity and demand associated with population growth, has not been gained global demand. For Boserup, population growth not only generates increased demand for agricultural products. Creates the conditions for the development of agricultural technology. (2)
The isolated state in relation to agriculture and nationalekonomi
, or studies on the influence auswben the grain prices, the wealth of the land and the taxes on agriculture, Vol 1
, 1826 ( 2) The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure (Chicago, Aldine, 1965)
documento relacionado: Criterios para la Caracterización del proceso de Deforestación en México. Sergio Madrid Zubirán
y Gonzalo Chapela y Mendoza. Consejo Civil Mexicano para la Silvicultura Sostenible / Red Mexicana contra la Desertificación RIOD-MEX / Universidad Autonoma Chapingo. 1998
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