In fact, our data reveal that 0.029 tons per hectare of fertilizer in average are supplied annually for maize farming in the region, while three tons per hectare are supplied for cotton farming in central Togo. Further, a cross-country comparison of the yield also confirms that the food crops have been discriminated against in terms of the fertilizer used. For instance, while the cotton yield in the central Togo has reached the international level’s , the average maize yields is 1.23tons, the tenth that of the North American countries ,according to the FAO Statistics . In fact, from the time of its introduction in Togo, the cotton production has relied heavily on input such as labor, land, fertilizer and pesticide. An international research center on Cotton and textile was even created in 1949 , to accompany the cotton production. On the other hand, the results confirm what was said previously about the reliance of maize and other food crops’ production on agricultural land’s area expansion rather than on the practice intensification.Else, our two models show an increasing effect of labor input on deforestation,which does not necessarily, indicates low labor marginal productivity leading to land/labor inputs substitution.

Ellis , Sills , and Rankow pointed out that the farmer may provide more than one combination of inputs to produce a given level of an output. However, a holding of 0.5 hectare for most farmers in the country constitutes an indicator of high unemployment andunder employment. This is an important constraint to the conservation because unemployed or underemployed farmer would necessarily encroach into the forestland as he has the opportunity to do so. The analysis results in Table 6 show that an increase in both fertilizer and pesticides’ cost increases the deforestation. These results are also consistent to the hypothesis that an increase in any capital input cost discourages the farmer producer from farming, ebb and flow table which in consequence forces him to forestry practices resulting in forest land loss. But cautions need to be made regarding the effect of the rising in input cost. Even though his analysis of the effect of the fertilizer input price on deforestation was not conclusive, Angelsen predicted that an increase in the fertilizer price would decrease the land area under cultivation.This is not a contradiction because the Angelsen situation would happen if there are other job opportunities that are available to the farmer, which is not the case in Central Togo. In fact, the national fertilizer cost had increased from 181 Fcfa per kg in 1997 to 250 Fcfa in 2012, and the pesticides’ from 3520 to 4500 Fcfa per liter. The rise in the fertilizer cost hashad different effects depending on type of the crops and on the type of inputs.The inaccessibility to the fertilizer, due to price increase leads the farmer to resign from cotton production to yam cultivation, consequently leading to deforestation.

When the fertilizer is inaccessible the maize farming practice becomes more extensive, which is detrimental to conservation, because as raised previously the cotton fertilizer supply has expanded the maize cropping’s time period beyond three years necessary for cropping the same land under the traditional agricultural practice. Likewise, the inaccessibility to pesticide due to price increase has the same effect on cotton production, the resign of the farmer, but does not affect the maize cultivation. However, this inaccessibility to pesticide discourages the farmer for the beans cultivation and shifts him to yam production because the cotton pesticides were also discreetly used in beans farming. Conservation has become a challenging issue in West Africa, first because as clearly outlined in this study the agriculture has remained extensive and thus the agriculture land expansion will increase in the future, and as many other current or looming factors continue to play or will play for the conversion of forest lands into other land uses. Second, the local people do not have any motive to appropriate the conservation policies because their basic needs are not yet satisfied .

Finally, the concern about tropical ecosystems of West Africa is that the use of the resources does not initiate or at least trigger the local development which, according to the Environmental Kuznets Curve , could initiate or trigger the land conservation or protection.Rather the resources depletion, the environmental degradation, and poverty are increasing. All these imply that the actual conservation measures including regulations and policing are inefficient policy instruments in solving the deforestation issues, new measures that effectively integrate the local development and conservation issues are required. For example, we urgently need to increase agriculture productivity. At the same time we should be able to cope with negative externalities associated to agriculture intensification which are the environmental deterioration and the failure of the revenues to compensate for the investment costs.