and others do not, and all must be weighed against alternative investment opportunities that may
be more attractive. Our research has not yet reached firm conclusions about the profitability of
different soil conservation practices in different zones.

Credit for Soil and Water Conservation Investments: Farmers could conceivably obtain credit
to overcome cash flow problems for soil conservation practices that are profitable at market wage
rates. This would enable the government to let farmers pay for practices that are privately
profitable, limiting subsidies to those that are not. To date we have identified silt harvesting
structures, terracing on deep black soil, and minor runoff disposal systems as investments that are
potentially bankable, and more research is needed to identify others.

However, we have found little or no evidence of farmers taking loans for soil conservation. First,
formal credit institutions do not have credit facilities for indigenous soil and water conservation
investments. Second, farmers say that if they were to take a loan, they usually have more pressing
investment priorities.

A successful loan programme for soil conservation would have to be designed in accordance with
the nature of such investments. Most importantly, it would have to recognize that soil
conservation work is commonly carried out in stages, not all at once. Loan funds would have to
be made available small amounts at a time, over several years. In addition, farmers would have
to be given flexibility to do the soil conservation work in the ways they please, using family labour
or hired labour. Hired labour may do other tasks in order to create time for the family to do the
soil conservation work themselves.


Hypothesis 4: Land Tenure

Farmers who cultivate their own land are much more likely to invest in soil conservation than
those renting or sharecropping someone else's land. Observations in the study villages suggest
that rented and sharecropped land, which covers about 15% of the area in the study villages, is
almost invariably characterized by low investment in soil conservation.

Tenants: Short-term tenants do not invest in long-term land productivity because they are not
likely to reap the returns (Ervin, 1986; Venkataramna and Johnson, 1988). This phenomenon has
two important implications. First, it strengthens the point that to increase adoption, soil and water
conservation practices should be by-products of activities that increase short-term productivity.
Second, it suggests a need for policy changes regarding land tenure. Indian farmers shy away from
land leases longer than one season because they fear that tenants can lay ownership claim to the
property. Legal changes that removed this fear would encourage longer term leases, perhaps
making land care investments more attractive to tenants.

Landlords: Our observations have also found that landowners who lease out their land and those
who exclusively use hired labor to cultivate it fail to invest in soil conservation. In neither case
can this failure be attributed solely to a short time horizon, since the owner still maintains long-
term tenure. Instead, it appears that such landowners are unaware of the problems, or do not
consider them worth worrying about. Alternatively, some landlords are too poor to invest in


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