Agricultural Intensification And Land Change

Land use is defined as the use of land to fulfil human needs that covers a formal economic sense and broader function such as functional relationships among humans, and between humans and the environment (Lambin et al. 2003). Similarly, Land-use change includes either a change of an existing land-use category or a change in the intensity of an existing land use (Riebsame, Meyer, & Turner, 1994).

A theory of induced innovation (Boserup, 1965; Ruttan & Hayami, 1984) has been commonly employed as a theoretical base to study land use change. According to the theory, agricultural production processes follow two key distinct land use changes: first, expansion of agricultural production to uncultivated areas with constant

Generally, technological change in agriculture can be categorized as labor-intensive and capital-intensive system or it can be yield-increasing with affecting labour or capital intensity. Therefore, the impact of technological change in these directions become more complex and would have positive or negative impact depending on how much the agent is constrained in respective resources, to what extent market is imperfect to balance resource constraints, and what other institutional factors influences the movement of resource from intensive and extensive agricultural margins (Angelsen & Kaimowitz, 2001). Market or policies that increase output price or reduce input cost also found to have a contrary or minor impact in reducing crop land expansion. On one hand, profitability of agriculture could encourage farmer to use improved input and increase yield or it could create incentive to clear forest for additional production. Thus, the outcome depends on the availability of labour and land. Technological improvements and productivity gains potentially also make the agricultural activity more profitable and thus more attractive, resulting in an increase in total agricultural land rather than a reduction (Lambin & Meyfroidt, 2011) contrary to most of the theoretical assumptions. An increase in input price could have both effects on one hand, reduce the profitability of agriculture and hence, the area allocated to farming. On the other hand, farmers could replace fertilizer with other input, land, through expansion. Besides, access to credit or lower interest rate for capital also found to have resulted in expansion of land through relaxing farmers’ capital constraints. However, creation of off-farm income could not be a guarantee since increased income can be allocated to acquire extra land, which in the case of rural