Andhra Pradesh state programmes. See Kerr (1991) for details.


10. Planning Commission

11.As the research is still in progress, the findings reproted here are confined to general
 hypotheses that have yet to be tested empirically.

12. Opportunity cost refers to the costs of foregoing an alternative opportunity and the gains
 obtainable from it.

13. The opportunity cost of time is a subject of great debate in development and labor economics.
 We are not proposing a general hypothesis here, but simply reporting what we have observed
 in the context of soil conservation investments.

14. Further case-by-case analysis is needed to determine under what circumstances these farmers
 could profit by hiring labor to do soil conservation work.

15. This depends on the opportunity cost of labour. Farmers in the study villages indicate that the
 opportunity cost of bullock power and human labour is sometimes less than the market rate,
 due to preferences not to enter the hire market. Bullock owners sometimes prefer to leave their
 bullocks idle rather than hire them out, and sometimes they prefer to use them on their own
 land rather than hire them out. (Source: conversations with farmers in Aurepalle village and
 in Kanzara village, Akola district, Maharashtra).

16. Vegetative bunds follow the same pattern: they are most common where they are easiest to
 grow, or where they augment scarce fodder supplies, and where other materials are more
 expensive.


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