Pasture taxes and agricultural intensification in southern Mali
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This study integrates biophysical simulation data with a farm household model of intertemporal optimization, to investigate
changing crop-livestock management practices in the Sudano-Guinean zone of Mali. Over a 15-yr time horizon we find that
free grazing on the commons remains more attractive to the representative household than adopting more labor- and capitalintensive
confinement systems, but that a relatively low level of pasture tax (around US$3 per livestock unit per year) would be
sufficient to induce intensification. Because confinement raises output, the net cost of the tax to the household is only about
US$1 per unit per year. Imposing pasture taxes to induce intensification could raise community welfare, if the value of
commons resources liberated by reduced grazing pressure exceeds that level. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights
reserved.