MODELLING LAND DEGRADATION IN LOW-INPUT AGRICULTURE: THE 'POPULATION PRESSURE HYPOTHESIS' REVISED
This paper provides a theoretical framework to analyse land quality and labour allocation decisions by poor rural households in the context of increased population densities in slash-and-burn (shifting cultivation) agro-ecosystems. A bio-economic optimal control model is presented and its results calibrated with data from two farming communities from Yucatan (Mexico). The ecological-economic model restates the validity of the neo-Malthusian 'Population Pressure Hypothesis' (PPH) as a major factor of land degradation.