DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03948
title: Diffusion of Sustainable Agriculture in the Amazon [Brazil]: A Panel Database, 1996-2000
title: Archival Version

description: This study, DIFFUSION OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE IN THE AMAZON [BRAZIL]: A PANEL DATABASE, 1996-2000, is no longer current. Please see DYNAMICS OF HOUSEHOLD LAND USE AND ECONOMIC WELFARE ON THE AMAZON FRONTIER, 1996-2005, RONDONIA, BRAZIL (ICPSR 25322), which includes a third round of panel data (2005), as well as edits and changes to the previous years (1996 and 2000). This study gathered farm-level panel data in Ouro Preto do Oeste, Rondonia, Brazil, to determine the relationship between household decisions and land use for Amazonian households. This project was initiated in August 1996 when a stratified random sample of 171 farmers in Ouro Preto do Oeste was selected along with 25 households that participate in the Association of Alternative Producers (APA) to investigate the decisions of farmers using slash-and-burn agriculture and others using sustainable methods of farming. The survey questions consisted of inquiries about the household (including age, education level, farming experience, and number of farm animals owned), lot characteristics (including size and division between pasture, forest, agriculture, and agroforestry), harvest of market and subsistence crops, agricultural and other forms of income, and the use of agroforestry and major influences determining farming techniques. Questions about income derived from agriculture provided information about the harvest of all perennial and annual crops, milk harvest and meat harvest, the amount of each item that was sold, and at what price.
description: Response Rates: There was only one refusal to participate in the survey in 1996. This was in the municipality Mirante da Serra. The high response rate is attributed to two factors: first, culturally, Brazilians are generally very hospitable to strangers, and second, because of the lack of contact with people, the farmers were generally pleased to communicate with outsiders. Many of the farmers do not leave their farms on a daily basis (especially during the rainy season) due to a lack of transportation, long distances to city centers, and poor road conditions.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: This study, DIFFUSION OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE IN THE AMAZON [BRAZIL]: A PANEL DATABASE, 1996-2000, is no longer current. Please see DYNAMICS OF HOUSEHOLD LAND USE AND ECONOMIC WELFARE ON THE AMAZON FRONTIER, 1996-2005, RONDONIA, BRAZIL (ICPSR 25322), which includes a third round of panel data (2005), as well as edits and changes to the previous years (1996 and 2000).
description: The Ouro Preto do Oeste region of Rondonia, Brazil.
description: The data include 323 observations from a stratified random sample, surveyed in 1996 (171 households) and 2000 (152 households) enriched with 45 observations (25 households in 1996, 20 in 2000) of the Association of Alternative Producers (APA) members. The sample includes considerable variation in distance to the main road (from 0 to 90 km) as well as soil type and topography. In the initial data collection, a random sample of 171 households, stratified by the rural population of each of the six municipalities in the region, were interviewed over a six-month period (August 1996 through January 1997). Jill L. Caviglia-Harris, assisted by a local farmer, conducted each of the interviews. The distance between interviews, in terms of lots, was designated in each municipality to represent the areas equally and to obtain spatial variation in topography, soil type, and distance to market. If the house was unoccupied at the time of the interview or the owner of the lot was not available, the owner of the next house on the same side of the road was interviewed, and if the same occurred at the next house, the owner of the next house on the same side of the road was interviewed. This occurrence was generally uncommon since most of the farmers stay close to, or on, their lots during the time of year the surveys were conducted (August through January), which ranges from the end of the burning period to the beginning of the planting season. Data were collected from the same farm lots in the August to November 2000 interview period. Some of the original 171 lots were dropped from the panel data because they were sold to land speculators who did not take up residence on the land purchased some time during the four-year time period. This reduced the stratified random sample to 152 households, a combined set of 304 observations across both years.