The socio-economic evaluation of agroforestry in Orissa (India)

Abstract

The paper evaluates agroforestry in the State of Orissa within the framwork of its stated socio-economic objectives. The estimated values of socio-economic parameters such as elasticity of social marginal utility of consumption, social discount rate, marginal productivity of capital, marginal productivity of labour, and inter-temporal consumption weight are −1.4, 2.05%, 0.142, 0.33 × wage rate, and 6.77, respectively. The intra-temporal consumption weights for the society, the main workers and the subsidiary workers are 1.005, 0.573, and 2.204, respectively. Both the distributional equity and efficiency aspects have been accounted for in the analysis. Based on two criteria (present net worth and land expectation value) the socio-economic profitability and optimum rotations have been determined for agroforestry on three site qualities, SQI (Site index = 20−23), SQ II (Site index = 17−20) and SQ III (Site index = 14−17), and contrasted with the results of financial analysis. The net socio-economic benefits are shown to be quite large for SQ I and II. In SQ III, as socio-economic costs outweigh the socio-economic benefits, it is suggested that for the agroforestry system to be socially profitable, the investment funds should be acquired by diverting consumption-oriented funds from rural development programmes such as ‘Food for Work’.