Agroecology and Small Farm Development
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1 v»V Agroecology and Small Farm Development Editors Miguel A. Altieri Division of Biological Control University of California, Berkeley Albany, California Susanna B. Hecht Graduate School of Planning University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, California CRC Press Boca Raton Ann Arbor Boston SMALL-SCALE AGRICULTURE IN 19 SOUTHEAST ASIA Gerald G. Marten L INTRODUCTION has been a rapid transformation to a cash economy. While Southeast Asia is a region of impressive cultural, envi- even remote areas of Southeast Asia bartered for certain ronmental, and agricultural diversity. Much of the region is goods (e.g., salt or cooking utensils) throughout the centu- mountainous, and there is a broad range of temperatures ries, most farmers in the region produced almost entirely for from tropical in the lowlands to temperate in the highlands. home consumption until a few decades ago. Meeting basic There is also a broad range of topographic conditions, from household food needs is still the priority of most Southeast flat alluvial valleys and coastal plains in the lowlands to Asian fanners. However, most also produce asmuch surplus undulating terrain, hills, and mountains in the uplands and as possible to meet cash needs generated by expanding highlands. Most of Southeast Asia is in the humid tropics, public education, rural electrification, modem communica- but there is great variation in the distinctness and duration of tions (e.g., radio and television), and modern transport that the dry season. Most of the land is now under agriculture has tied farm families to major cities in their region. Some (Table I).1 households now specialize in one or two high-value crops Much of Southeast Asia is blessed with fertile volcanic or and purchase most of their food. alluvial soils. Such areas, particularly the river valleys, have Scientists in the Southeast Asian Universities Agroeco- high human populations. Many of the mountainous areas system Network (SUAN) have been particularly concerned have been dominated by forests until recent decades, but with the implications of these changes * Can large human they are rapidly being transformed to agriculture as a conse- populations and intensive agriculture be sustained in hilly or quence of logging and the movement of expanding human mountainous areas that have had forests until recently? Can populations into land available for farming. Some areas of introduced high-yield varieties and high-yield technologies Southeast Asia have extremely poor soils. Until recently, (based on high levels of energy and chemical inputs) be most of those areas were forested and had small human expected to continue to provide high yields on a long-term populations, usually practicing shifting agriculture. Com- basis? SUAN scientists have addressed these questions mercial logging and colonization projects are now trans- concretely in terms of the specific environmental conditions forming the landscape in many of those areas to agriculture. and agricultural technologies in their areas. The overriding theme of Southeast Asian agriculture is SUAN scientists have also been concerned with interac- change. In addition to the spread of agriculture into forest tions between the agriculture in their areas and the social lands, recent decades have seen major changes in agricul- systems of farmers who practice the agriculture." The sci- tural technologies as a consequence of international and entists want to understand the fanners' living circumstances national programs for agricultural development In fact, and their bases for making agricultural decisions, in order to throughout the centuries there has been an influx of new know what kinds of improvements in agricultural technol- •gricultural technologies to Southeast Asia as various world ogy will be relevant and appropriate to the fanners' needs. powers have asserted their influence in the region. Farmers The scientists also have come to appreciate the need to in the region have always been receptive to new agricultural comprehend the major social forces (e.g., transformation 'technologies that promised to improve their lot, and the from a subsistence to cash economy) that are driving agricul- present time is no exception. However, the pace of change tural changes, so they can anticipate needs and guide their MS quickened. Many farmers in Southeast Asia now work research accordingly. with a mix of traditional and modern technologies. Three broad types of small-scale agriculture are promi- Along with the adoption of modern technologies, there nent throughout the region: [icefields, rainfed fields, and 183 184 Agroecology ana Small Farm Development TABLE 1 Land Use in Southeast Asia (1980)1 (thousands of hectares) ToUl Annual Perennial Permanent Forest and Country Uod area cropland* cropland* pasture* woodland* Burma 65,774 9.573 450 361 32.167 Indonesia 181.135 14,200 5300 12.000 121.800 iCifnpuchea 17.652 2,900 146 580 13372 Laos 23,080 860 20 800 13.000 Malaysia 32.855 1.000 3310 27 12300 Philippine! 29.817 7.050 2.870 1.000 12300 Thailand 51.177 16^50 1.720 308 15.790 Vietnam 32436 5495 460 4.870 10330 Toul 434.026 57,428 14.276 19.946 241.149 Land under temporary crops (double crapped area* are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing pasture, land under market and kitchen (ardent, and land temporarily fallow or lying idle. Land cultivated with crop* that occupy the land for long periods and need not be replanted after each harvest, such ts cocoa, coffee, and rubber, it includes land under throbs, fruit trees, nut trees, and vine but excludes land under trees grown for wood or timber. Land in permanent (5 yean or more) herbaceous forage crops, either cultivated or growing wild (wild pnirie or grazing land). Land under natural or planted stands of trees, productive or not, includes land from which forests have been cleared but will be reforested in the foreseeable future. bomegardens. Rice is the staple food of most Southeast homegardens), though the details of their organization are Asians, and flooded rice paddies dominate most agricultural different in each area. landscapes in Southeast Asia. Rice is particularly prominent Each of these areas has been selected because its agricul- in floodplains and alluvial valleys, but terraced rice is also ture has functioned so well At the same time, the agriculture common in upland areas wherever irrigation water is avail- in each of these areas is changing rapidly. The changes are a able. response to compelling needs, but as we shall see, the Rainfed fields are also common, particularly in upland changes have run into ecological and social problems. The areas where irrigation is not available. Rainfed fields consist challenge presented by these problems cannot be ignored primarily of annual field crops, often several different kinds when setting an agenda for agricultural research and devel- interplanted in the same field. Sometimes there are fruit trees opment. or other perennial crops scattered through the field as well. Many rainfed fields are permanent; others are rotated with a n. PHILIPPINE CORDILLERA (BONTOK) forest fallow. Paddy fields can function as rainfed fields The Bontok are highly traditional subsistence farmers at during the dry season if they have field oops at that time. an altitude of 600 to 2100 m in the Cordillera of the Philip- The third major form of agriculture, homegardens, pines. Villages have 600 to 3000 inhabitants who occupy a though less extensive in area than ricefields and rainfed territory of 10 to 30 square kilometers. The Bontoks provide fields, is no less ubiquitous. Nearly every bouse in the region an example of agriculture that has been sustained on steep is surrounded by some kind of garden, usually a mixture of mountain slopes for centuries without ecological degrada- shade trees and fruit trees and sometimes containing a tion. The following description is based on studies by the selection of vegetables or other annual crops. Homegardens Cordillera Studies Center (University of the Philippines, are almost always rainfed, though select crops in the garden Baguio) and the Institute for Environmental Science and may be hand irrigated. Management (University of the Philippines, Los Bates).5"10 This chapter will describe the agriculture of three South- There are five major land uses: rice paddies, swidden east Asia locations that have been studied by SUAN scien- fields, grazing areas, forest, and villages (including home- tists (Figure 1): the Cordillera highlands in the Philippines; gardens). Most agricultural labor is devoted to the paddy the uplands of West Java. Indonesia; and Chiangmai Valley fields, which are terraced and occur primarily on the lower in northern Thailand. These three areas represent not only a portions of mountain slopes wherever streams are large progression from highlands to lowlands but also a progres- enough to provide irrigation water. The fronts of the terraces sion from highly traditional and subsistence agriculture to are held in place by stone walls. The main crop is traditional agriculture that is more modem and involved in a market rice, which is cultivated during November to July, when economy. Each of these areas has all three types of agricul- sunshine is at a maximum during the dry season. A second ture mentioned above (i.e., ricefields, rainfed fields, and crop, rice or field crops such as sweet potatoes, is grown ir Small-Scale Agriculture In Southeast Asia 185 FIGURE 1. Location of the Philippine Cordillera, We« Java, tad Quang- mti Valley in Southeast Alia. paddy fields during the wet season (July to December). on the timing of land preparation, transplanting, and other Swidden fields are located higher on the slopes and are activities for the traditional rice crop. primarily rainfed. The swidden fields contain interplanted Pigs occupy a central role in the village economy. They crops such as millet, sweet potatoes, beans, squash, corn, are the major source of meat for religious ceremonies and the bananas, and fruit trees.