Viewpoints to
consider... Issues to explore
Roger Leakey has chosen
excerpts from four books - their subjects
ranging from Africa to the Amazon, and
local knowledge to ecological restoration
- that illustrate the breadth and depth
of agroforestry, and give a taste of
recent trends in theory and research./GJM
Cultivating
knowledge
For thousands of years farmers have been
adapting crops to diverse environments
and experimenting with and developing new
varieties. The interaction between
people, the environment and their food
crops has provided the world with a wide
range of crops and a remarkable diversity
of varieties within single crops
These interactions have also resulted in
a human capacity to further develop crops
through a process of continuous
adaptation and experimentation
Agricultural modernisation,
commercialisation, intensification of
production, and destruction of habitats
are promoting genetic erosion, and
threatening both this diversity of local
crops and the processes which sustain it.
This also results in a loss of
farmers knowledge of crops and of
their capacity to maintain and develop
diversity. Institutionalised crop
breeding relies to a considerable extent
on landraces originating in the major
centres of diversity in the South. The
genetic material available for this
modern crop breeding is therefore being
diminished. While genetic erosion
threatens the worlds base of food
plants, the erosion of knowledge
threatens the human capacity to maintain
and further cultivate this
diversity
[This book] examines the threat to
global agricultural diversity and the
implications for agroecosystems. It
addresses the need to develop appropriate
research and development strategies which
build upon the capacity of farmers to
experiment with crops, and the knowledge
they have acquired of diversity.
Farmers experiences with diversity
provide an important framework for the
development of conservation
strategies
A challenge facing the agricultural
sciences is to develop methodologies and
institutional forms, which will enable
farmers to build upon their skills in
adapting crops to the environment... In
recent years there has been growing
realisation that human activities
contribute considerably to genetic
diversity. Conservation strategies can
benefit from building linkages with the
crop development strategies of rural
people. Farmers have created and managed
environments where plants could evolve
under selective pressure. These
environments differed from those
occurring in those wild
environments only marginally disturbed by
people. They have adapted their farming
practices, crops and varieties to
different environments, thus creating a
diversity of agroecosystems, crops and
varieties. Such ecological and genetic
diversity provides security for the
farmer against pests, disease and
unexpected climatic conditions
In contrast, modern agriculture is
largely concerned with standardisation
and attempts to homogenise the
environment to achieve optimal production
conditions... The development of more
environmentally sustaining technologies
requires the transformation of these
strategies. Greater emphasis needs to be
placed upon preserving the diversity of
crop varieties, crop species,
agroecosystems, regions and
societies
Recent concerns with the environment
and natural resources management
have resulted in a growing emphasis on
developing research approaches which
build upon the capacities of farmers to
engage in experimentation and adapt
technologies to local needs. These
approaches place a strong emphasis on the
local knowledge of farmers, both as an
entry point for new research and as a
relevant resource which complement
shortcomings in scientific approaches to
interaction with the environment
Recent interest in local knowledge of
genetic resources needs to be treated
with caution since, in this age of
biotechnology, control over diversity in
plant genetic resources offers the
promise of considerable wealth and
economic power to the agribusiness world.
This is reflected in the recent rush to
establish patents over life forms. In
this struggle the odds are very much
stacked against small farmers. Through
control of world legal, market and
political knowledge, agribusiness
interests are likely to be able to use
research into local knowledge for narrow
commercial interests, rather than for the
long-term development and environmental
needs of marginalised farmers. There is
the risk that discovery, while
potentially progressive, can precede
exploitation
An adequate response to this challenge
requires that, beyond developing
methodologies and institutional
approaches for building linkages between
farmers and researchers, research
addresses the policy dimension of crop
development. This requires the
elaboration of a critique of the
institutional and commercial settings of
research, a critique that has the
potential to influence policy frameworks
and promote change and reform in such
areas as legislation, intellectual
property rights and agricultural research
management. This critique must also
create pressures for technology
institutions to become more transparent
and responsive to the needs of the
majority of farmers. At the same time,
local organisation needs to be
strengthened in order to increase the
capacity of farmers to manage local
development, to analyse the wider
environment in which their crop
development activities unfold, and to
exercise pressure over institutions and
policy makers. These are challenges which
can only be met when socio-cultural,
biological and political economic
perspectives are combined consistently
and logically.
De Boef W., K.
Amanor. and K. Wellard, with A.
Bebbington 1993. Cultivating
Knowledge: Genetic Diversity, Farmer
Experimentation and Crop Research.
London, Intermediate Technology
Publications. This book presents a
number of case studies from Africa,
Latin America and Asia that examine a
suite of issues surrounding the
repercussions of the expansion of
agribusiness on the interests of
small-scale farmers. Contact: Mr. Guy
Bentham, Sales and Marketing
Director, Intermediate Technology
Publications Limited, 103-105
Southampton Row, London WC1B 4HH, UK;
Tel. +44.171.4369761, Fax
+44.171.4362013, E-mail itpubs@itspubs.org.uk,
Website http://www.oneworld.org/itdg/publications.html
Rehabilitation
of degraded pasture in Amazonia
The 6.2 million square kilometer
Amazon Basin is the worlds largest
remaining preserve of tropical forest and
a large C [carbon] pool. By 1988
development strategies aimed at settling
the landless poor and integrating
Amazonia into the Brazilian national
economy had led to the deforestation of
between 20 35 million hectares. Of
the cleared areas, the dominant land use
was, and continues to be, low
productivity cattle pasture, over half of
which is thought to be in some state of
degradation. There are an estimated 20
35 million hectares of abandoned
pastures in the Amazon basin, and these
abandoned lands may take 50 to 100 years
to develop into mature secondary forest.
Meanwhile, local farmers and new migrants
to the Amazon continue to clear primary
forest for transitory food, cash crop,
and pasture systems, and eventually
abandon the land as it loses
productivity. Rehabilitating the
productivity of these abandoned pasture
lands has the potential to convert large
areas from sources to sinks of C, while
providing for the well-being of people in
the region and preserving the
worlds largest undisturbed area of
primary tropical rainforest.
Agroforestry systems are well suited
to improve land productivity and conserve
natural resources in the Amazon. To
rehabilitate the productivity, C
sequestration, and biodiversity of the
huge expanses of low biomass, abandoned
pastures in the Amazon, we have designed
and are testing four agroforestry
multistrata systems (sequences of crops,
pastures and trees). The systems were
designed on the basis of an intensive
farmer survey and the results of two
decades of soil/plant research in the
Amazon. A key specification of the design
was to optimize both biological
productivity and economic returns, while
minimizing nutrient losses through a
combination of biological and modest
chemical inputs
The dominant vegetation at the site is
moist, evergreen forest. The soil is a
Xanthic Hapludox and the rainfall is c.
2800 mm yr-1. The degraded and abandoned
pasture vegetation consists of 39 species
representing 34 genera and 23 families.
The most abundant tree species were Laetia
procera, Vismia amazonica, Vismia
lateriflora, and Visma
cayennensis. The most frequently
encountered herbaceous species were the
competitive forbs Borreria
verticillata and Rolandra
fruticosa. Many of the species and
genera detected at this site have been
reported in species inventories of
abandoned pastures at other locations in
the Amazon. Total above ground biomass on
the abandoned pastures corresponds to
about 5% of the biomass reported for
primary forests on Oxisols in the Amazon
and less than half of that reported for
other secondary forest regrowth of
similar age. This is a reflection of
moderate to high site disturbance
intensity which hinders successional
regrowth when the pastures were
abandoned
Four agroforestry systems were
developed as promising prototype systems
for rehabilitation of degraded
pastureland in the western Amazon. Two
agrosilvicultural (trees and crops) and
two agrosilvopastural (trees, crops and
improved pasture) systems were
established. The treatments imposed were
designed to provide comparisons between
moderate and intensive land use within
each of these agroforestry systems. Tree
species comparisons in each option were
chosen on the basis of local farmer
practices and for specific uses, e.g., as
live fences (Gliricidia sepium),
fruit (Theobroma grandiflorum, Inga
edulis, Bactris gasipaes, Bertholettia
excelsa, Malphigia emarginata, and
Carica papaya), firewood (Inga
edulis) and timber (Swietenia
macrophylla and Schizolobium
amazonicum). Planting density and
pattern for each tree species involved
considerations of canopy architecture and
whether competition among species was a
desirable trait. Peach palm, for example,
was planted at high density because half
of the plants are harvested every 12-14
months for heart-of-palm. Annual crops (Oryza
sativa, Manihot esculenta, Zea mays,
Vigna unguiculata) were planted
during the initial periods of tree and
pasture establishment, but were
eventually phased out of the systems by
tree shading or competition with grasses
and forage legumes. Animal grazing of the
grass-legume pastures in the
agrosilvpastoral treatments began in
1996
The systems are now 6 years old and
all the components have been installed.
In the first two years, the high input
agrosilvopastural system produced 2.5t
ha-1 of maize and cowpea and 20t ha-1 of
cassava. The agrosilvicultural systems
produced 0.4t ha-1 of rice, 14t ha-1 of
cassava and 20.1t ha-1 of fruit (Theobroma
grandiflorum, Malphigia, Eugenia,
papaya, and passion fruit). The high
market value of the fruits makes the
latter system more attractive for
farmers.
Weed management was crucial to
ensuring successful establishment and
growth of the crop and fruit species. On
average plots contain 1.4t ha-1 of weeds
containing 22kg N, 2kg P, 22kg K, 8kg Ca
and 4kg Mg ha-1. Weed biomass was applied
as mulch to fruit trees so that the
nutrients released from the weeds would
partially offset the cost of weeding. The
diversity of plants appearing in the
agroforestry plots was double that found
in the abandoned pasture controls. We
encountered 65 species distributed across
40 genera and 18 families.
The spatial arrangements in the
agrosilvopastoral systems successfully
inhibited the attack of Hypsipylla
grandella on mahogany and resulted
in clean stems of 6 m in three years
before attacks were observed. The pole
tree Columbrina glandulosa
proved to be an excellent species for
multistrata systems, reaching 10 m in 3
years. All plant species responded
positively to added nutrients. There was
a dramatic shift in functional groups of
soil macrofauna in the agroforestry
systems compared to the abandoned pasture
controls. Earthworm population increased
significantly in the system containing
peach palms. Measurements of total
nutrient and carbon stocks, green house
gas fluxes, macrofauna dynamics and
system productivity and profitability are
in progress.
Fernandes E.C.M.,
R. Perin, E. Wandelli, S.G. de Souza,
J.C. Matos, M. Arco-Verde, T.
Ludewigs and A. Neves. 1999.
Agroforestry systems to rehabilitate
abandoned pastureland in the
Brazilian Amazon. Pages 24-26 in F.
Jiménez and J. Beer, editors,
Multi-strata Agroforestry Systems
with Perennial Crops. Turrialba,
CATIE. This book presents the
proceedings of a recent conference
held at CATIE and provides much
current information about multistrata
systems, especially in Latin America.
Contact: Ms. Laura Coto, Head, Orton
Memorial Library, CATIE, 7170
Turrialba, Costa Rica;
Tel. +506.5561016, Fax +506.5560914,
E-mail lcotor@catie.ac.cr,
Website http://www.catie.ac.cr
Farms,
trees and farmers
[In this book] we consider whether the
patterns of tree growing behaviour that
have been observed and analysed enable
the formulation of stronger hypotheses
about the role of trees and tree
products, and about requisites for tree
growing by farmers, and provide a more
focused starting point for the process of
defining the need and potential for
policy, programme or project
interventions
As the variety and
complexity of the array of different
roles played by trees in rural livelihood
strategies becomes clearer, it is evident
that there are few answers of general
application
As has been demonstrated in nearly all
of the situations examined here, there
have been, and continue to be,
significant changes in the way farm
households employ trees and tree products
over time, with many of the changes being
both substantial and rapid. Furthermore,
the general trend in different regions
experiencing agricultural intensification
has been towards more intensive tree
planting
Production and use of tree
products at the village level are in
practice often embedded in complex
resource and social systems, within which
most of the factors that affect our
ability to intervene with forestry
solutions at the village level are of a
non-forestry nature. They are primarily
human factors, connected with the ways
the people organize the use of their land
and other resources
Where trees do serve a purpose in
terms of household objectives, they will
often contribute to meeting environmental
and distributional concerns as well. But
it needs to be clear that any broader
resource and environmental benefits that
may accrue from tree stocks emerge as a
by-product of, and are subordinate to,
farmers pursuit of their livelihood
goals
Tree planting can be explained as
being one or more of four categories of
response to dynamic change:
to maintain supplies of tree
products as wild sources decline due to
deforestation or loss of access
to meet growing demands for tree
products as populations grow, new uses
emerge or external markets develop
to help maintain agricultural
productivity in face of environmental
degradation
to contribute to risk reduction
and risk management in face of needs to
secure rights of tenure and use, to even
out peaks and troughs in seasonal flows
of production and income and in demands
on labour; or to provide a reserve of
biomass products and capital available
for use during times of stress or
emergency
With most situations experiencing
reduction in access to off-farm supplies,
growing demand, declining site
productivity and increased exposure to
risk, it should not be surprising that
tree planting activity does increase as
agriculture and landuse become more
intensive. Though it would be incorrect
to assume that this always happens, there
is a general progression towards more planted
trees as agriculture and pressures on
land intensify, and existing trees
diminish, within most systems. It is also
clear that a substantial part of the
increase in farm tree growing reflects
the fact that, as pressures on their
labour and other resources increase, many
farmers are responding by reducing
the intensity of use of their land, or
part of their land. Faced with shortages
of labour and other inputs to agriculture
(compost, fertilizer, etc.), farmers
abandon their poorer or more distant
lands, or put them under less intensive
use, in favour of concentrating the use
of available inputs on the more
favourable sites
It has long been argued that private
growing of such a long-gestation crop as
trees will occur only if there is
security of tenure over the land on which
they are to be planted. However, the
thesis that this degree of security can
only be provided by private ownership of
the land has increasingly been
questioned. The occurrence of privately
planted trees in a wide variety of
tenurial contexts indicates that such
generalizations are not necessarily
accurate
In Eastern Africa, the
most important factor affecting tree
growing appears to be the existence or
absence of rights of exclusion, in
particular exclusion of grazing on the
households fallow fields. Where
this is discouraged, because livestock
management is important, or where it
cannot be enforced, tree growing is
unlikely to take place. Where farmers can
exercise this degree of control, economic
factors are probably more important than
land tenure in determining decisions
about tree growing
Where
governments intervene to tighten control
over forest resources on public land,
this can undermine or eliminate local
rights of use, and can accelerate the
shift towards greater dependence on
privately planted resources
As agriculture shifts from a
predominantly subsistence basis to
greater involvement in market
transactions, tree growing at the farm
level becomes exposed to a number of
influences. Markets for factors of
production affect the availability and
cost of land and capital, and choices
between activities that draw upon these
factors in different amounts and
proportions. Access to purchased inputs
such as fertilizer can permit shifts away
from extensive land uses involving trees.
Access to market outlets for tree
products can extend the range of the farm
household income generating options
Local markets for fruits, fuel, poles and
other tree products develop, often first
as barter trade, as shortages emerge, as
increasing demands on the time of women
leave less time for gathering what is
needed to meet household needs, and as
rising incomes allow some the option of
purchasing rather than gathering or
growing.
Arnold J.E.M. 1997.
Retrospect and prospect. Pages
271-287 in J.E.M. Arnold and P.A.
Dewees, editors, Farms, Trees and
Farmers: Responses to Agricultural
Intensification. London, Earthscan.
This book brings together results of
the work of a number of researchers
who have examined the changes in tree
management taking place in different
parts of the world. Contact:
Earthscan Publications Limited, 120
Pentonville Road, London N1 9JN, UK;
Tel. +44.171.2780433, Fax
+44.171.278142,
E-mail earthinfo@earthscan.co.uk,
Website http://www.earthscan.co.uk
More
people, less erosion
The view which this book takes of the
environmentpopulation debate
differs from most others
We are
seeking to explain why environmental
recovery has succeeded, and the role in
this of various actors, including, very
importantly, the local inhabitants
Some have taken the view that rapid
population growth leads inevitably to
increased poverty and natural resource
degradation, through, amongst other
things, land scarcity, falling fallows,
deforestation, cultivation of marginal
lands, conditions favouring large
families and underdeveloped human
capital
Our view has been
conditioned by two factors. The first is
the evidence we have amassed of the
reversal of degradation in Machakos
(Kenya) of rising productivity and living
standards, and successful exploitation of
lands previously deemed unfit for
agricultural use. The second is the
knowledge that population growth has been
accompanied by specialisation,
diversification of the economy and an
increased rate of technological change,
which has outpaced any threat to the
depletion of resources. We therefore see,
in this instance, population increase as
positive, not negative
In pursuing improvements in their
livelihoods, the Machakos people have not
destroyed their environment, despite
their poverty and the riskiness of their
semi-arid climate. That there was a real
environmental problem in the 1930s has
been shown in the photographic record.
The change that has taken place was not
due to changes in rainfall systems. Soil
erosion has been eliminated on much
cultivated land and there are signs of
improvements in grazing lands. The spread
of population and stock into
agroecological zones 5 and 6 has not so
far resulted in any irreversible loss of
productive capacity, although there has
also been an increase in the woodiness in
the vegetation. Some areas formerly under
natural vegetation are now conserved and
productive arable fields, as are areas
that were formerly degraded and almost
bare grazing lands. The fuel shortage has
never reached the often-predicted crisis
point and there are now more trees grown
for many different purposes. Agricultural
output on a per head and per hectare
basis has increased in value
substantially, with food output tracking
population growth. The only area where
improvement in resources is in doubt is
in the maintenance of soil fertility
levels where we have been unable to reach
firm conclusions. However, we have shown
that fertility depends on management.
Agricultural incomes are now supplemented
by much more non-farm work than was
formerly available. The huge growth in
the output of non-subsistence products
has developed jobs in marketing,
processing and the satisfaction of new
consumer demands
Conservation has been the result of
the farmers own investments of
labour and capital into land improvement
and development, at times assisted by
external advice and capital. The physical
changes have been accompanied and
underpinned by changes in Machakos
society, which developed its knowledge
and management capacity, and which
broadened the basis of local leadership.
This enabled it to select, evaluate,
develop and use different technologies,
and to react to changes in the markets
for its labour, land, and feasible
outputs
We accept the view that
technological change is both impelled by
population growth and facilitated by the
increased human interaction to which it
gives rise. We see new technologies as
coming from many sources, including,
importantly, the farmers themselves
We regard the availability of capital
and security, knowledge of opportunities
and technologies, economic incentives and
access to jobs, land, or markets, as
necessary conditions to enable people to
respond to population pressure either by
out migration to seek jobs, or by
settlement of new lands, or by
intensification of agriculture and the
diversification of the local economy
in situ
The switch to farm-tree promotion that
took place under the Machakos Integrated
Development Programme recognised the
value placed on privately owned economic
trees. A quiet revolution in farm tree
management has increased the value of
output per hectare and is consistent with
the imperative of intensification
The discussion here has shown the
importance of attention to population
density and to access to markets and
knowledge, which increasing population
density helps to facilitate. What is
appropriate at a high level of population
density may be a misuse of scarce labour
resources at low population densities. At
low densities, population growth assists
development, by providing labour and
facilitating access to markets and to
information. In Machakos, rising output
volume has accompanied a rise in
population densities to over 400 km2 in
the higher potential areas. The people
who have the best knowledge of the
changing costs of land and labour and of
the market opportunities for products and
labour are the inhabitants.
Tiffen, M., M.
Mortimore and F. Gichuki. 1994. More
People, Less Erosion: Environmental
Recovery in Kenya. Nairobi,
African Centre for Technology Studies
and London, Overseas Development
Institute. Based on a field study of
landuse change in Machakos District
in Kenya, this book comprehensively
summarizes the results from a project
by ODI and the University of Nairobi
that illustrates population growth
need not have negative impacts on
either peoples livelihoods or
the environment. Contact: ODI,
Portland House, Stag Place, London,
UK; Tel. +44.171.3931600, Fax
+44.171.3931699,
E-mail odi@odi.org.uk
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