Tropical forests are disappearing rapidly — with potentially high social costs in biodiversity loss and carbon emissions. But what does agriculture have to do with this? Consider the role of small farmers: they account for about two-thirds of rain forest destruction, by converting land to agriculture. Most of them are poor. They moved to forest margins to escape from poverty elsewhere and they deforest in order to survive. Deforestation is not likely to slow until these people can earn a living and meet their food needs. And their numbers are growing, even where in-migration has slowed or stopped, as families reconstituted at the forest margin move through the life cycle. Agriculture to meet these food needs may lie behind much forest clearing. Still, only improvements in agriculture’s performance as part of an opening up of alternatives for meeting basic welfare requirements can save the rain forest.
