Agglomeration payments for catchment conservation and improved livelihoods in Malawi

“Groupon”是一种流行的零售技术，如果个人消费者能够说服其他人也参与其中，他或她的回报就会增加。土地管理也可以类似Groupon，在这种情况下，基于邻居参与的奖金支付可以用来实现土地使用的连续性，防止土地退化，提高生物多样性和其他生态服务。这种支付-在生态经济学文献中被称为“聚集支付”-也可以通过减少道德风险和鼓励持续采用来抵消一些项目成本。这项研究适用于聚集付款的一部分，在马拉维的希雷谷流域的土地保护做法的鼓励设计。在与马拉维土地资源和保护部（DLRC）和马拉维全国小农协会（NASFAM）的合作伙伴关系，我们的研究将评估聚集支付对采用农业保护技术的影响，目前正在推广由马拉维政府，和正外部性的夏尔谷盆地，可能会从采用农场的空间连续性产生。 在这一领域采用可持续农业做法的情况仍然有限，因此难以评估影响。我们的双管齐下的研究策略包括第一个试点研究与4治疗鼓励设计，以评估策略，以改善采用保护农业（CA）技术下DLRC主导的计划在夏尔谷。治疗将比较推广服务，传统的支付，并鼓励采用可持续农业实践，如CA聚集支付的作用。其次，我们建议开发一个基于代理的模型（ABM）的夏尔谷流域系统，以评估改善采用可持续农业实践的后果，以加强提供生态系统服务，如改善水质和径流调节，或增加自然捕食者和授粉服务。基于主体的模型将系统中的行为者（如农民）视为个体主体，其决策和互动导致土地覆盖、水质或生态系统一级的影响等紧急生态层面的结果。从我们的试点研究的社会相互作用和决策的数据将告知这一区域规模的ABM，再加上土壤-水评估模型已经开发的撒哈拉以南非洲和文献模型提供捕食者和授粉服务，将允许评估不同的奖励措施在试点研究中评估的潜在规模的后果。在评估以可持续农业实践为重点的项目的影响时，面临的一个挑战是，虽然有些影响（如降低成本和劳动力）会迅速产生，但其他影响（如产量或水质的变化）可能需要多年的持续性保护措施实施才能显现。这里提出的设计克服了这一限制相结合的现场数据收集与建模，旨在解决三个关键问题：Q1）聚集支付如何改变农民之间的互动，以及采用的做法，如CA的速率/模式？Q2）集聚支付能否增强生态系统服务的提供？问题3：相对于传统激励措施，集聚支付是否有助于提供具有成本效益的生态系统服务？

A popular retail technique, the 'Groupon', is a system in which returns to an individual consumer are enhanced if he or she can convince others to participate as well. Analogs to the Groupon are possible in land management, where bonus payments based on the participation of neighbors can be employed to achieve contiguity of land use, prevention of land degradation, enhancement of biodiversity and other ecological services. Such payments - termed 'agglomeration payments' in the ecological economics literature - may also offset some program costs by reducing moral hazard and encouraging sustained adoption. This study applies agglomeration payments as part of an encouragement design for land conservation practices in Malawi's Shire Valley basin. In partnership with the Malawi Department of Land Resources and Conservation (DLRC) and the National Smallholder Farmers' Association of Malawi (NASFAM), our research will evaluate the impacts of agglomeration payments on the adoption of agricultural conservation technologies being promoted currently by the Government of Malawi, and the positive externalities for the Shire Valley basin that may accrue from the resulting spatial contiguity of adopting farms. The adoption of sustainable agricultural practices in this area is still modest, making it challenging to evaluate impacts. Our two-pronged research strategy includes first a pilot study with a 4-treatment encouragement design to evaluate strategies for improving adoption of conservation agricultural (CA) technologies under DLRC-led programs in the Shire Valley. The treatments will compare the roles of extension services, conventional payments, and agglomeration payments in encouraging adoption of sustainable agricultural practices such as CA. Second, we propose to develop an agent-based model (ABM) of the Shire Valley basin system to evaluate consequences of improved adoption of sustainable agricultural practices for the enhanced provision of ecosystem services such as improved water quality and runoff regulation, or increased natural predator and pollination services. Agent-based models treat actors in the system (such as farmers) as individual agents whose decisions and interactions lead to emergent landscape-level outcomes such as land cover, water quality or ecosystem-level impacts. Data on social interactions and decision making from our pilot study will inform this regional-scale ABM which, coupled to soil-water assessment models already developed for Sub-Saharan Africa and to literature models for provision of predator and pollination services, will allow assessment of the landscape-scale consequences of the different incentives evaluated in the pilot study. A challenge in evaluating impacts from projects focused on sustainable agricultural practices is that while some impacts (such as reduced costs and labor) accrue rapidly, others (such as shifts in yields or water quality) may take years of consistent CA implementation to emerge. The design proposed here overcomes this limitation by combining field data collection with modeling, aiming to address three key questions:Q1) How do agglomeration payments shift interactions among farmers, as well as rates/patterns of adoption of practices such as CA?Q2) Can agglomeration payments lead to enhanced landscape-scale ecosystem service provision?Q3) Do agglomeration payments facilitate cost-effective ecosystem service provision, relative to conventional incentives?