Pathways of Rural Development in Madagascar: An Empirical Investigation of the Critical Triangle between Environmental Sustainability, Economic Growth and Poverty Alleviation, in: Quarterly

FCND Discussion Papers contain preliminary material and rese rch results, and are circulated prior to a full peer review in order to stimulate discussion and critical comment. It is expected that most Discussion Papers will eventually be published in some other form, and that their content may also be revised. iii This paper is based on community-level data from 188 villages in rural Madagascar. The survey that was conducted in 1997 made extensive use of long-term recall questions ascertaining changes during the past 10 years in rice yields, wages, population, soil fertility, and other pertinent variables of rural development. We find that—on average for all villages—the yields of irrigated rice, the major food crop, and real agricultural wages declined, while the communities expanded their upland area by nearly a quarter and experienced deteriorating fertility of their upland soils. These patterns are consistent with the wide-held belief that rural areas in Madagascar have witnessed increased poverty, economic stagnation, and a continued degradation of the natural resources. Yet, the five agroecological regions in our sample exhibit quite different patterns o