C sequestration depends largely on cycle length (frequency of clear
felling for rejuvenation). Where
treecrop systems can be rejuvenated without clear felling, a substantial
increase in C stock may be possible.
Moreover, there do not appear to be big differences among forest
extraction and the other tree-based systems regarding carbon stocks and
greenhouse gases. Thus, as far as agronomic sustainability and climate change
objectives are concerned, tree-based systems dominate among the alternatives.
Raising
productivity of rubber agroforests, which span millions of ha, offers a
promising pathway in
As discussed in Part IV, a key
unresolved question is whether the potential for development of smallholder
rubber agroforests can compete with the (private and social) profitability of
large-scale alternatives, including oil palm plantations, industrial timber
estates and logging concessions. These are viewed as ‘best bets’ for economic
development by many policymakers and donors, in large part because of
conventional wisdom of economies of scale in plantation development. If it turns out that large-scale
development alternatives are more profitable—recall from Part IV that this is
not a foregone conclusion—an important tradeoff between global environmental
benefits and national development objectives will have to be faced. This is
because there is an important tradeoff with biodiversity conservation for
large-scale plantation monocultures such as oil palm.
Even if further analysis shows that the
large-scale schemes hold no advantages in terms of private and social
profitability compared to smallholder schemes (see Part IV), a potential
tradeoff between profitability and biodiversity conservation remains to be
addressed concerning smallholder systems (van Noordwijk et al.,. 1995b). Farmer
management aimed at increasing productivity of systems often decreases
biodiversity. Whether or not this apparent trade-off between productivity and
biodiversity is inescapable is the subject of debate--and further research.
Very little is known about the shape of the family of curves describing the
trade-off function, or even whether a trade-off always exists (Figure V.1). If
the relationship is convex to the origin, even modest productivity gains cause
great loss of biodiversity. If the relationship is concave, biodiversity loss
is relatively slow for initial increases in productivity. In this case, raising
productivity to an intermediate level may involve a modest trade-off in terms
of biodiversity loss. Thus, two of the most important research questions
regarding the selection of ‘best bets’ in
Figure V.1
Potential profitability
versus biodiversity for new technology
V.3Potential for development of technological options
A wider range of tree-based
‘best bet’ alternatives for smallholders should be examined regarding their
environmental, agronomic, and economic impacts and feasibility of
adoption. The priorities listed in Table
V.2 were identified by scientists active in the ASB-Indonesia Research
Consortium at a national meeting held in
Table V.2 Priorities for further studies of Sumatran
land uses
|
‘ |
Corresponding
land use in Sumatra |
Type / scale
of operation |
Landscape
mosaic context |
Remarks |
|
Candidates for new studies
in the Peneplains |
||||
|
Simple treecrop systems |
Smallholder oil palm
monoculture |
Smallholders’ plots of 1-5 ha |
Indigenous smallholder landscape mosaic |
Identified
as a priority at May ASB-Indonesia meeting: need for study in Jambi and
Lampung? |
|
Smallholder
timber monoculture |
Smallholders’ plots of 1-5 ha |
Indigenous smallholder landscape mosaic |
Identified
as a priority at May ASB-Indonesia meeting: need for study in Jambi and
Lampung? |
|
|
Candidates for new studies
in the |
||||
|
Multistrata agroforestry systems |
Robusta coffee
under shade |
Smallholders’ plots of 1-5 ha |
Indigenous smallholder landscape mosaic |
Linked to watershed work in Lampung – high priority as part of ‘scaling up’ efforts. |
|
Damar
agroforests (rice-pepper-coffee-fruit-damar) |
Smallholders’ plots of 1-5 ha |
Indigenous smallholder landscape mosaic |
Lots of data on this system are available. |
|
|
Simple treecrop systems |
Robusta coffee
monoculture |
Smallholders’ plots of 1-5 ha |
Indigenous smallholder landscape mosaic |
As noted above, linked to watershed work in Lampung – high priority as part of ‘scaling up’ efforts. |
|
Cinnamon
monoculture |
Smallholders’ plots of 1-5 ha |
Indigenous smallholder landscape mosaic |
Most of the data needed are available from a recent dissertation. |
|
Smallholder rubber production continues to be the most important source
of income in most of the lowland peneplain of Sumatra and
Our experiments have shown that selected high-yielding clones can be
successfully established in smallholder systems at substantially reduced
management intensity, compared to the monocultural plantations for which they
were originally selected. Weeding intensities of 1-3 times per year are
sufficient for good rubber growth, and this need only be done within the rows
of rubber trees. We find that fertilizer
application can usually be reduced or eliminated. The main constraint to rubber establishment
appears to be pig and monkey damage, which can be controlled by fences, bamboo
shafts around individual trees, or regular guarding of the plots. The bamboo
shaft technique, a common practice in one of the study villages, but not known
in others, appears to be effective against pig damage.
Rotational Agroforestry Systems ('RAS') consist of
an establishment phase, during which food crops can be interplanted with young
trees and a phase in which the trees dominate, before the cycle starts all
over, by a (field-level) clearing (often by slash-and-burn) to prepare the land
for a next cycle. The harvested fraction of total biomass differs widely from
near zero in classical fallow systems to over 50% when most wood is harvested
and only branches and ‘slash’ are left in the field. A wide range of RAS system
has been developed in various parts of the world, ranging from crop-(improved)
fallow rotations, where annual food crops provide the main value to systems
where trees such as rubber make the 'fallow' by far the most important phase
for continuous revenue generation or where the final harvest of an established
wood-lot dominates, as in 'taungya' systems. Where the annual food crops
dominate, system improvement will often tend to shorten the cycle, by choosing
fallows which restore soil fertility faster. Where the trees (formerly thought
of as 'fallow') provide the main value, the systems may evolve toward longer
cycles. But all RAS systems have in common that the rotation has a clear end
point at which the farmer decides to fell the trees and re-plant (when the
expected gains of doing so are higher than the expected gains of waiting). This
means that slow-growing trees have little chance to mature, unless they
are very profitable. Some forms of RAS
such as rubber agroforestry systems can allow the regeneration of part of the
natural forest vegetation, but only for those species that reproduce within the
maximum age of the stand.
In contrast
to these rotational systems, we may distinguish a class of Permanent Agroforest Systems ('PAS'), where rejuvenation takes
place at a patch level of one or a few trees, without slash-and-burn land
clearing. The system approaches the character of permanent, forest-like
vegetation, even if it started in the same way as a RAS. Prime examples of PAS
are Damar agroforests of Krui West Lampung (Sumatra) and mixed fruit tree
gardens ('Tembawang') of Kalimantan and
Does this
mean that Permanent Agroforest Systems are a 'better bet' than Rotational
Agroforestry Systems within the frame of the 'Alternatives to Slash and Burn'
project where environmental values are considered as well as profitability? For
the time-averaged C stock we may expect an increase of about 30 Mg C ha-1 as
the average age goes up from 15 – 20 years for a 30-40 year cycle, to 30 for a
60 year’s life span of individual trees. Net GHG emissions are likely to be
reduced as the agroforest soil can probably maintain a loose topsoil structure
and phases with excess mineral N and thus N2O emissions can be
reduced by managing the regeneration process. No problems are to be expected
with the sustainability criteria used in our evaluation, so the profitability
and institutional issues may be the main
concerns. Returns to labor may be reasonable, if a comparison is made with NTFP
collection and rubber agroforestry, but the returns to land will probably be
less than the maximum in Table IV.3. There also are institutional
concerns: PAS systems that mimic natural
forests have been mistaken for natural forests and classified accordingly by
state forestry officials, denying access to the farmers (or their children) who
planted and managed the trees.
PAS normally occur in a mosaic with land uses that allow food crop production on a rotational or permanent basis, such as in paddy rice fields. Full reliance on the market as a way of ensuring local food security has not generally been attractive, even for PAS systems which generate a constant flow of revenue such as the Damar agroforests. Agroforest managers can spread risks by maintaining broad portfolio activities, which may yield or earn good prices in different years. The opportunities of benefiting from genetic selection in tree planting material may be no less than in RAS, provided the planting material suits the more competitive environment of an established stand, with less opportunities for the farmer to manage above- and belowground growth conditions to meet the needs of a young individual tree.
All
tree-crop based production systems evaluated during the second phase of the ASB
project in
To
complement current data, a further analysis of PAS management of rubber
agroforests is needed. Two options for management should get attention:
- rubber
regeneration by gap planting, and
-
enrichment of rubber gardens with fruit and timber species.
Best bets for rehabilitating degraded lands
The options for farmers who are
trapped in the cassava/Imperata cycle
are reduced in comparison with those in the forest margin. The soil has been
depleted of those forms of organic matter that can feed crops of young trees by
mineralization. However, the soil is not depleted of soil organisms, including
micro-symbionts such as mycorrhiza and N fixing microbes. Development of
tree-based production systems can be hindered by the landscape context of such
plots, with a large chance of fires raging through plots where individual
farmers would plant trees. The soil seedbank is nearly exhausted and there is a
limited array of tree species that can reach the plot and start the process of
succession towards forests – most trees will have to be introduced by the
farmer. In what may seem a hopeless situation for any individual, it may be
more attractive to abandon the land, look for employment in the city, or open
new land where the forest margin is still accessible.
The situation in the North Lampung
ASB benchmark area illustrates these hardships, aggravated by the long dry
season of 1997 and its effects on the trees that had been planted (against the
odds). A long drought and intense fires were followed by a locust plague during
the next growing season, devastating rice, maize and sugarcane crops.
Opportunities for off-farm employment meanwhile were reduced as the sugarcane
plantation in the neighborhood barely survived. The local (illegal) sawmill
(which transformed the last trees left in the landscape into construction wood
and provided local employment), closed down as timber supply was depleted and
the building boom in
Are there
any bets which are still worth making for farmers in such circumstances? Our
rather abstract analysis of ‘best bets’ may need a reality check. Cassava
prices have increased after the drought and cassava production is gaining in
popularity – despite our judgement that this is not sustainable. Intensive food
crop production is biophysically possible, but requires substantial investments
beyond the means of local farmers. Oil palm and rubber are feasible, although
for both tree crops the length of the dry season is near the limit. The long
dry season of 1997 may have caused a 40% decline in oil palm yields in this
area (with effects on fruit production for about a year after the drought),
while rubber yields in plantations were only reduced by 10 % (S. Budiman, pers comm.). Farmers in the benchmark
area still see smallholder oil palm production as an attractive option and are
willing to work hard to clear Imperata- infested
plots. They reckon they can clean only ¼ ha per year. This type of oil palm
production differs substantially from the ‘nucleus estate – smallholder scheme’
on which most government projects are built. It definitely deserves a further
study of its prospects, opportunities and constraints. Rubber agroforestry may
be the other main opportunity for farmers in the area, managed as pure stands
or mixed with timber trees or fruit trees (Paraserianthes
is popular but did not perform well in the long dry season of 1997, except
for the wettest places in the landscape). A wider array of trees is needed to
diversify production for these circumstances. Initial farmer surveys have shown
interest in a number of local trees (including Alstonia or ‘pulai’) as well as introduced species. Markets for
locally-produced wood may be well enough developed, as there is hardly any wood
coming from forest remnants. There are some remnants of mixed fruit tree
agroforests, as well as early stages of such a system, based on local fruit
trees that have undergone little selection and ‘domestication’. Marketing of
such fruits is not well developed, but road access may be good enough. Outside
the ASB benchmark area many farmers have planted rubber already, often
intercropped with cassava. The cassava – rubber combination is considered risky
in the rubber literature as it entails a risk of root diseases shared in the Euphorbiaceae family to which both
belong. Farmers may not be aware of these risks, or simply feel that they have
no choice, as direct income is needed while waiting for rubber to become
productive.
Would this
type of tree-crop based intensification of land use be relevant to interest groups
aside from the farmers directly involved? The answer to this question has a
local/direct part and an indirect one, based on migration as an option for
people in the benchmark area. (This depends whether improved opportunities in
areas such as the benchmark area reduce the pressure on the forest margins).
Direct consequences for biodiversity conservation of a tree-based
intensification in the degraded lands are likely to be small, but a change from
a land use with a time-averaged C stock of 40 Mg ha-1 to one of 100
Mg ha-1 could be significant. Net GHG emissions may increase during
such rehabilitation, as the availability of mineral N will have to increase,
but excess N fertilization (standard practice in intensively managed oil palm
plantations) may be less likely to occur under smallholder management.
V.4 Potential for adoption of existing land use
alternatives
The ASB-Consortium will
marshal its research results in order to inform key planners and policymakers
about the potential environmental, social, and economic benefits of a
smallholder-based development strategy as an alternative to large-scale
plantation monoculture. But, as already mentioned, there are some important
institutional questions that must be addressed to enable widespread adoption of
profitable alternatives by smallholders.
Table V.3 on market institutions and Table V.4 on other institutional
issues are summaries of a more elaborate assessment of institutional
requirements following Vosti et al. (1998).
Although it does not capture all the nuances of these complex
institutional issues, the following notation was developed to ‘flag’ the most
serious institutional barriers to adoption by smallholders for further detailed
analysis:
Å indicates no constraint, interpreted as a
‘green light’ to go ahead with development
¨ indicates a possible constraint, a ‘yellow
light’ meaning proceed but with caution
· flags a serious constraint, a ‘red light’
that jeopardizes prospects for adoption of the
alternative by smallholders
Market institutions
Input supply markets. Planting material supply markets are the
greatest barrier to adoption of profitable alternatives by smallholders –
indicated by ‘red lights’ for clonal rubber and for oil palm. For example, farmers
have little access to improved rubber planting material. The Treecrops Advisory
Service, which is virtually the sole provider of rubber budwood, has focused its efforts on supplying planting
materials to project participants in the past and largely has ignored the much
larger number of non-participants (Tomich 1991). Except in a few areas of
Table V.3
Institutional capacity
vis-a-vis system-specific institutional needs
--A market checklist
|
Land Use |
Input Supply Markets |
Output Markets |
Labor Markets |
Capital Markets |
|
Community forest |
|
¨ |
Å |
Å |
|
Commercial logging |
Å |
· |
Å |
¨ |
|
Rubber agroforest
(seedlings) |
Å |
Å |
Å |
Å |
|
Rubber agroforest (clones) |
· |
Å |
Å |
¨ |
|
Rubber monoculture |
· |
Å |
Å |
¨ |
|
Oil palm monoculture |
· |
¨ |
Å |
· |
|
Upland rice / bush fallow
rotation |
|
|
Å |
Å |
|
Continuous cassava
degrading to Imperata cylindrica |
Å |
¨ |
Å |
¨ |
blank = n.a, Å = no constraint,
¨ = possible
constraint, · = constraint
Output markets. Government restrictions on marketing and
international trade are the greatest barriers to development of smallholder
timber-based alternatives and also hinder community-based forest management. Beginning in 1998, government has agreed to
begin deregulation of timber exports, to abolish
joint-marketing associations (that functioned as cartels), and to end export
quotas and numerous other restrictive marketing arrangements. Although export taxes still are high, private
firms now should be free to trade timber as they wish. In Part VII, detailed
attention is given to export taxes on timber from agroforestry species, which
currently are set at 30%.
Previous
restrictive marketing practices damaged most timber companies’ marketing
capacity by inhibiting development of
marketing networks that could respond to buyers’ needs. The situation is particularly bad for rattan,
since the export ban on raw rattan destroyed overseas markets or induced
importers to seek alternate supplies.
There also is concern that old ‘rent seeking’ practices (like the
plywood and clove cartels) will re-emerge under new guises. These risks are increased by lack of market information on
these commodities. The lack of information probably is worst for non-timber
forest products, especially those occupying narrow market niches.
Oil palm also has been subject to export taxes ( set
at 60% through the end of 1998) and at times export bans (Tomich and Mawardi
1995) that seriously depress farmgate prices.
For oil palm and cassava there also are some concerns about development
of local markets that can link smallholders with processors. However, these seem to be emerging.
Local
markets for natural rubber have functioned for a century or more. Although there are some imperfections
affecting quality – viz., difficulty of assessing dry rubber content -- these
markets transmit world price changes to the farmgate rapidly and marketing
margins reflect transport and other costs.
Natural rubber markets have been subject to few distortions from
national policy, but at times the international buffer stock has depressed
prices.
Table V.4
Institutional capacity
vis-a-vis system-specific institutional needs
--A checklist for other
institutional issues
|
Land Use |
Non-Market Information |
Regulatory Issues |
Local Environ-mental Impact |
Property Rights |
Equity Biases |
Social Cooperation |
|
Community forest |
· |
· |
Å |
· |
Å |
· |
|
Commercial logging |
· |
· |
· |
· |
· |
· |
|
Rubber agroforest (seedlings) |
Å |
Å |
Å |
· |
¨ |
¨ |
|
Rubber agroforest (clones) |
· |
Å |
Å |
· |
¨ |
¨ |
|
Rubber monoculture |
· |
Å |
Å |
· |
¨ |
¨ |
|
Oil palm monoculture |
· |
¨ |
¨ |
· |
· |
¨ |
|
Upland rice / bush fallow
rotation |
¨ |
Å |
Å |
· |
Å |
¨ |
|
Continuous cassava
degrading to Imperata cylindrica |
¨ |
Å |
· |
¨ |
Å |
¨ |
blank = n.a., Å = no constraint,
¨ = possible
constraint, · = constraint
Labor markets. Although the complete analysis also included
skilled labor requirements, the summary analysis presented here focuses on
unskilled labor. Instead of hiring permanent
skilled workers, smallholders may be more likely to develop certain technical
skills themselves. So the relevant
barrier is the acquisition of technical information (considered in Table V.4)
rather than the market for skilled labor.
Although labor markets in
Capital markets. Capital market problems are second only to
planting material supply as a barrier to adoption resulting from market
imperfections. As already noted, there
is no long-term institutional credit available in rural
Other institutional issues
Non-market information. Information acquired from research (e.g.,
new technologies) comes primarily from the Government and existing research
facilities are inadequate to meet research needs of the diverse productions
conditions of these land uses. This
constraint is particularly severe for alternatives, such as NTFPs and
smallholder timber, that are not high priorities for Government, especially
compared to rice, the staple food. This bottleneck on technical information is a
concern for all systems, except rubber agroforests using seedlings where indigenous
knowledge is well developed.
Regulatory issues. As discussed above under output markets,
policies that restrict access to markets are a particular concern for timber
and non-timber forest products and for oil palm. This is compounded for timber and NTFPs by
policies that attempt to restrict access to
Local environmental
issues. Based on available data,
production of most of these systems earns a ‘green light.’ (However, there may be water and air quality
concerns arising from the processing of rubber, oil palm, and cassava.) The exceptions are large-scale logging and
continuous cassava cultivation, which are susceptible to erosion. As we emphasized at the end of Part IV,
further work is needed to assess the environmental impacts, including air quality,
landscape biodiversity, and watershed functions, of expansion of particular
alternatives.
Property rights. This is a
highly-charged political issue that draws a ‘red light’ for all systems except
continuous production of foodcrops on a transmigration site; even here there
can be problems of tenure conflicts with indigenous groups that pre-date the
settlement. In most cases, tenure
status of lands at the forest margins (and the products derived from those lands)
needs to be clarified between the government and local communities. The damar agroforests in Krui exemplify this
situation. Although developed and
managed by smallholders for over a century, this land recently was classed as
Equity biases. The primary concern is that potential
economies of scale will lead to concentration of land under commercial logging,
for which scale economies have been documented elsewhere, and for oil palm,
where scale economies probably are not intrinsic but may result from current
development policy. Despite the conventional wisdom, the prevailing faith in
economies of scale in production of so-called ‘plantation’ commodities receives
little (if any) support from agricultural economics (Hayami; Tomich, Kilby and
There also is some cause for
concern regarding gender bias since recent studies have shown that tree
planting induces a shift from matrilineal inheritance to partilineal
inheritance for some categories of trees in some areas of
Social co-operation. The main
need for social cooperation concerns the two forest extraction alternatives,
community based extraction of NTFPs and logging. In each case, sustainability of the land use
is in doubt if communities cannot manage a system to restrict access to their
common property resources. Indigenous
communities with their customary laws intact appear to have this capacity (see
discussion of ‘KdTI’ in Part VII); recent settlers may not. Collective action also is required for fire
and pest control, and may be an emerging constraint in many agricultural
systems.