  Most of the world poorest people come from rural areas and depend on their
local ecosystems for food production. Recent research has highlighted the
importance of self-reinforcing dynamics between low soil quality and persistent
poverty but little is known on how they affect poverty alleviation. We
investigate how the intertwined dynamics of household assets, nutrients
(especially phosphorus), water and soil quality influence food production and
determine the conditions for escape from poverty for the rural poor. We have
developed a suite of dynamic, multidimensional poverty trap models of
households that combine economic aspects of growth with ecological dynamics of
soil quality, water and nutrient flows to analyze the effectiveness of common
poverty alleviation strategies such as intensification through agrochemical
inputs, diversification of energy sources and conservation tillage. Our results
show that (i) agrochemical inputs can reinforce poverty by degrading soil
quality, (ii) diversification of household energy sources can create
possibilities for effective application of other strategies, and (iii)
sequencing of interventions can improve effectiveness of conservation tillage.
Our model-based approach demonstrates the interdependence of economic and
ecological dynamics which preclude blanket solution for poverty alleviation.
Stylized models as developed here can be used for testing effectiveness of
different strategies given biophysical and economic settings in the target
region.
