175. TAC was informed about the progress made on the Marginal Lands Study since TAC 73. It was recalled that a set of four papers would be submitted to the Group, and these comprised: (i) a paper describing the origin and evolution of the Study; (ii) the Report of the Panel chaired by Dr. Mike Nelson; (iii) a paper describing a framework for classifying land types in relation to agriculture for use by the Group in discussing all types of land use issues; not just those pertaining to marginal lands; (iv) a paper on rural poverty and its relationship to agriculture including land degradation, TAC noted that the origin and evolution paper and the framework paper were being drafted by Dr. Ted Henzell in consultation with the TAC Secretariat, and would be ready for discussion at TAC 75. The paper reviewing the literature on links between rural poverty and land degradation had been prepared by Dr. Sohail Malik, and had been distributed for comments to TAC Members.
176. There ensued a brief discussion on the Malik paper which had concluded that understanding of the intricate processes of poverty and land degradation was extremely limited, and driven largely by perceptions of those analyzing the phenomena. The aggregate information available was not very useful for making judgements about poverty and land degradation. Evidence from the few available micro-level studies was mixed and contradictory. In the literature, the pressure arising out of the processes of economic development that might induce people to degrade the land had been classified as those related to: increases in population; declines in common property resources; interest rate changes; and technology transfers. However, much more research in a variety of settings over a reasonable length of time was needed for a deeper understanding of household decision making processes, especially in terms of the relationship with land. Such research should ideally be built on detailed household-level longitudinal socioeconomic surveys with specific land use and quality assessment modules. Results from such research could only enhance the efforts within the CGIAR System on integrating commodity research with natural resources management consideration. The relevance of research must be enhanced through collection and use of more disaggregated information on poverty.
177. The TAC Chair pointed out that the inter-Centre initiative convened by CIAT to map poverty was beginning to make advances. It was suggested that it would be useful to map where degradation was occurring. Several Centre representatives indicated that they had been working with IFPRI in developing information on poverty and land use. One TAC Member suggested that IFPRI should appoint a task force to bring to a conclusion its work on the relationship between poverty and land degradation. It was pointed out that the household as a unit of analysis was less appropriate than the community, and the Malik paper had not covered some of the literature in that area. Further, the degradation of common property resources played a small part in overall terms. In bringing the item to a close, the TAC Chair reminded the Committee that all four papers related to the marginal lands study would be discussed at TAC 75 when the Committee would decide on the next steps.
