Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment: Farmers' Strategies for Managing Acid Upland Soils in Southeast Asia: An Evolutionary Perspective.2005, Farmers' Strategies for Managing Acid Upland Soils in Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, region of Asia (1990 est. pop. 442,500,000), c.1,740,000 sq mi (4,506,600 sq km), bounded roughly by the Indian subcontinent on the west, China on the north, and the Pacific Ocean on the east. : An Evolutionary Perspective. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, Vol. 106, Issue 1, 69-87 The acid soils of the uplands of Southeast Asia have resisted intensive agricultural use for centuries. In recent decades, however, due to rapid population growth, escalating market demand for agricultural produce, and government policies for land development and settlement, the acid uplands have become the focus of more intensive land-use systems, placing greater demands on farmers and requiring the development and dissemination of improved practices for soil management. In order to develop appropriate soil management technologies and plan effective interventions to facilitate their adoption, it is important to understand the goals and circumstances of farmers in the acid uplands, the range of farming systems they have developed, and the variety of socio-economic factors and trends influencing the evolution of these farming systems. Building on Boserup's model of agrarian change, an evolutionary framework is developed and applied to five case studies: a long-fallow (shifting) cultivation system Cultivation System or Culture System Revenue system in the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) that forced farmers to pay revenue to The Netherlands in the form of export crops or compulsory labour. in Sarawak, Malaysia; a short-fallow system in South Kalimantan South Kalimantan (Indonesian: Kalimantan Selatan often abbreviated to Kalsel) is a province of Indonesia. It is one of four Indonesian provinces in Kalimantan - the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. The provincial capital is Banjarmasin. , Indonesia; a continuous cropping system in Bukidnon, Philippines; a tree crop (with intercropping Intercropping is the agricultural practice of cultivating two or more crops in the same space at the same time (Andrews & Kassam 1976). A practice often associated with sustainable agriculture and organic farming, intercropping is one form of polyculture, using companion planting ) system in Southern Thailand Southern Thailand is a distinct region of Thailand, connected with the Central region by the narrow Kra Isthmus. Geography Southern Thailand is located on the Malay Peninsula, with an area around 70,713 km², bounded to the north by Kra Isthmus as the narrowest part of ; a livestock grazing grazing, n See irregular feeding. grazing 1. actions of herbivorous animals eating growing pasture or cereal crop. 2. area of pasture or cereal crop to be used as standing feed. See also pasture. system in Daclac, Vietnam. The framework provides a useful tool to interpret and categorize farmers' evolving soil management strategies and to plan more effective soil management research and interventions. (author) |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion