JUDGE Experiences in Assessing the Sustainability of Agriculture dited by Wim Hiemstra, Coen Reijntjes I LE!A W/Hîe/iyiM/ ILEIA READINGS IN SUSTAINABLE AGRICUL rURE Let Farmers Judge Experiences in Assessing the Sustainability of Agriculture Edited by Wim Hiemstra, Coen Reijntjes and Erik van der Werf INTERMEDIATE TECHNOLOGY PUBLICATIONS 1992 $19/ Published by Intermediate Technology Publications 103/105 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4HH, UK A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library © ILEIA 1992 ISBN 1 85339 149 2 Printed by Antony Rowe, Bumper's Farm, Chippenham, Wiltshire SN14 5QA, UK. Contents Page Preface v Acknowledgements vii Part I: Measuring Sustainability 1 Larry Harrington: 2 Measuring sustainability: Issues and alternatives Part II: What Criteria to Use? 17 J.C. Zadoks: 19 The costs of change in plant protection Douglas Horton: 29 Lessons from the Mantaro Valley Project, Peru Christine Pahlman: 43 Soil erosion? That's not how we see the problem! Allan Low: 49 On-farm research and household economics Part III: Aspects of Economic Assessment 63 Floris van der Pol: 65 Soil mining: An unseen contributor to farm income in southern Mali Michael Stocking and Nick Abel: 77 Labour costs: A critical element in soil conservation Charles Francis: 87 Sustainability issues with intercrops Pierre Morion: 97 Crop yields and the small-scale family farm economy: An example from the central Andes Anne Floquet: 102 Farmers' assessment of ecological cropping techniques Part IV: Comparing Farming Systems 113 Pedro Sanchez and José Benites: 115 Low-input cropping for acid soils of the humid tropics iii SusannaHecht: 129 Indigenous soil management in the Latin American tropics: Neglected knowledge of native people Hilario Padilla: 143 High and stable crop yields: The Bontoc rice terraces J. Palmer: 151 The sloping agricultural land technology experience Boudewijn van Elzakker, Rob Witte and Jan-Diek van Mansvelt: 165 Benefits of diversity: Organic coffee growing in Mexico Erik van der Werf: 175 Can ecological agriculture meet the Indian farmer's needs? M.P. Bimbao, A.V. Cruz andI.R. Smith: 187 An economic assessment of rice-fish culture in the Philippines Castillano delà Cruz, Clive Lightfoot andR.C. Sevilleja: 195 A user perspective on rice-fish culture in the Philippines Further Reading 205 Checklist of Criteria for Assessing Agricultural Technology 206 iv Preface Mrs Christine Karuru owns a 9-acre farm in Mangu village, about an hour's drive northeast of Nairobi, in the central Kenyan highlands. Population pressure is high, and continuous cropping has led to depletion and deterioration of the land resource. In Christine's words, 'Ordinary fanning has failed so obviously in this area'. That is why Christine decided to turn her farm into an organic farm. She learned about the necessary practices from KIOF, the Kenyan Institute of Organic Farming. Now she has succeeded in introducing composting, the recycling of nutrients, the use of liquid manure, crop diversification, double digging, crop rotation, natural pesticides, mulching and the use of leguminous trees. She is even being asked to educate other farmers in the area interested in taking up organic farming. But is her farm more sustainable or less sustainable than it was before? What is sustainability, and what is sustainable—the farm, the watershed, the natural resource base, the crop or livestock production system, or the livelihood of Christine and her family? In other words, how can sustainability best be assessed? The need for sustainable agriculture is now generally accepted, but the discussion of what sustainability means is still confused. Detailed comparative analyses of the sustainablity of different systems and practices are few, and the methodology for conducting such analyses remains to be developed and standardized. It was in response to this situation that ILEIA organized, in December 1990, an international workshop on Assessing the Effectiveness of Low-external-input Farming Techniques. The main themeof the workshop was how to assess techniques for managing soil fertility—a problem central to the pursuit of sustainable agriculture. A literature search was made, publications on different technologies and on various aspects of environmental economics were studied, and members of the ILEIA network offered their views in a baseline paper. Twenty-eight people from different backgrounds—farming, policy making, research, development—and different countries were invited to share their experiences at the workshop. The results were edited and, together with other relevant articles, published in a special issue of the ILEIA Newsletter (1 and 2,1991). This reader is a follow-up to that workshop. It is a collection of papers on the theme of assessing sustainability in agriculture. The collection is divided into four parts. Follow­ ing an introductory theme paper (Part I), the papers in Part II discuss the conceptual framework for assessment. Part III examines specific methodological issues, with the emphasis on farmers' assessment criteria. Part IV contains case studies comparing the performance of environmentally friendly farming practices and systems with that of conventional (high-external-input) agriculture. The objective of this reader is to keep the non-specialist in agricultural economics informed about the current debate on how to assess sustainability and the effectiveness of low-external-input agriculture. Its title, Let Farmers Judge, reflects an important V conclusion that emerged as the book took shape—that only if fanners themselves are centrally involved in assessments will such assessments be realistic. It is easy for scientists and others to imagine they understand farmers' criteria for evaluating new practices and systems. Time and again, however, rates of adoption suggest that they did not, or did so only partially.The 'paired' papers in this book illustrate this theme potently. We hope this reader will create some understanding, not only of the difficulties but also of the rewards, of economic and social analysis of low-external-input and sustainable agriculture. Several papers reflect a sense of wonder and admiration on the part of their authors, as they discover the resourcefulness of the traditional practioners of low- external-input agriculture—the so-called 'resource-poor' farmers of developing countries—and the beauty of the systems they have developed and perfected over the centuries. This book should stimulate field workers to develop participatory approaches to technology development and assessment It should also provide food for thought for policy makers, who will find in it much convincing evidence of the viability of low- external-input systems which, in so many ways, are capable of outperforming conventional 'modern' systems. Your own experiences in assessing the effectiveness of low-external-input farming systems and practices, and your comments on this reader, will be very welcome, and may eventually be used in other ILEIA publications. Wim Hiemstra, Coen Reijntjes and Erik van der Werf (editors) ILEIA P.O. Box 64 3830 AB Leusden The Netherlands vi Acknowledgements This book would not have been possible without the help of many people outside ILEIA. We extend our thanks in paticular to: • The farmers, field workers and researchers who shared their experiences and insights with us, either in writing or in discussion; • The authors and publishers who gave their permission to use their material, most of which has been published previously; • Mr Kees Zijderveld, of Partners in Agricultural and Rural Development (PARDEC), Wageningen; Ms Anne Stanneveld of MATRIX consultants in development manage­ ment, Utrecht; and Ms Neertje van de Geest, previously with the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam. These Dutch agricultural economists assisted in selecting the articles and in commenting on the editorial. • Ms Ellen Radstake, Ms Suzanne Gosman, Ms Lyanne Alons and Ms Marian de Boer, for their administrative and secretarial assistance; • Mr Simon Chater and Ms Kerry Smith of Hawson Farm, Buckfastleigh, UK, for editing the articles and making them camera-ready for the publisher; • Mr Erik van de Werf, for the photographs appearing on the front cover and as an introduction to Part II. The front cover shows Mr Tangaswamy, an Indian farmer, admiring a heavy jackfruit on his ecological farm in Pudikottai, Tamil Nadu, Southern India. •Mr Laurens van Veldhuizen, for the photograph of Christine Karuru; Mr. Kees Manintveld, for that of Mrs. Balomtesi Ngongoregoand Mr Hilario Padilla, for that of the Bontoc rice terraces. vii PART ONE: Measuring Sustainability Mrs Christine Karuru is an organic farmer in Kenya. She feeds her cows with Napier Grass, fodder from leguminous trees and 'organic waste' from the garden. To what extent does her farm provide an example of a sustainable production system? Photo: Laurens van Velthuizen Measuring Sustainability: Issues and Alternatives Larry W. Harrington Introduction Sustainability has been defined and characterized in vastly different ways—from the resilience of individual agro-ecosystems to food security in the face of global climate change. Approaches to measuring sustainability are heavily conditioned by how the word sustainability itself is understood. Some general issues are nevertheless common across all possible approaches. General Issues Predicting the future Measuring sustainability implies drawing conclusions, or at least stating probabilities, about future events. When an agro-ecologist