Adoption of Policy Incentives and Land Use: Lessons From Frontier Agriculture in Southeastern Peru

Literature on environmental change often highlights the importance of public policies as a key driver of land use and land cover change. However, demonstration of policy impacts in agricultural settings has been hampered by the lack of systematic analysis across landholders, who may not universally adopt government policy incentives, or time periods, which may be associated with differing policy regimes. This paper evaluates the importance of voluntary adoption of policy incentives offered by Peruvian government administrations over two decades for land-use among small farmers in the Peruvian Amazon. The analysis focuses on whether farmers adopted one or more policy incentives in order to observe the effects on land uses including mature forest, agricultural crops, cattle pasture, and secondary growth. We employ multivariate statistical models to estimate the effects of policy adoption while controlling for other factors. The findings show that distinct policies are associated with particular land-uses and largely follow expectations. Specifying policy incentives promulgated by governments and differentiating among adopters and non-adopters advances understanding of the impacts of public policies on land use.