Work

Landscape, welfare, and distributional trade-offs from smallholder agroforestry contracting: An agent-based model approach

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: CONTEXT Agroforestry value chains have been extensively promoted as potential ‘win-win’ vehicles for Sustainable Intensification in tropical upland landscapes. Coffee contract farming in particular can support landscape environmental policy objectives through improvements in soil erosion and biomass carbon, while also providing smallholders with higher agricultural profits. OBJECTIVE This paper explores the extent in which coffee agroforestry contract farming influences household welfare and landscape environmental outcomes using a case study of the peri-urban uplands of Bandung, Indonesia. METHODS We develop an agent-based simulation model to test the welfare and landscape effects of coffee contracting interventions. The model incorporates household survey data with granular land cover and soil maps. Smallholder farmer agents interact with coffee value chains and other agricultural and labour markets, and make land use decisions that have landscape-level environmental and household welfare implications. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS The modelling simulations show that coffee contracting can achieve improved incomes for farmers, and increased agroforestry landcover. However, transaction costs can impede many households from accessing contract coffee markets, resulting in trade-offs between higher incomes and increasing rural income inequality. Contract coffee displaces lower-input agroforestry where opportunity costs are low, resulting in significant landscape declines in biomass carbon and increases in soil erosion – an outcome akin to a Jevon's Paradox. SIGNIFICANCE Agroforestry value chain interventions deliver trade-offs when seeking to address multiple and complex landscape challenges. Complementary non-market interventions that better align smallholder incentives with environmental policy objectives are necessary for these value chain interventions to be effective tools for Sustainable Intensification.

Source: Agricultural Systems

DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2025.104493

Authors: Daniel Hill, Oscar Cacho, Jonathan Moss

Institution: University of New England

Language: English

Topic: Agricultural Innovations and Practices

Subfield: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

Field: Agricultural and Biological Sciences

Domain: Life Sciences

SDGs: Life on land, No poverty, Climate action, Zero hunger

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,000