In most of the humid and tropical parts of Indonesia, farming communities have built strong links with the money
economy and urban centres. Investments
in agriculture, improved access to education, health, agricultural services and
entertainment have meant that farm
households need a source of cash income.
On-going research into the dynamics of
these indigenous systems has shown that
villagers have been extremely innovative
in the way they have applied indigenous
strategies to intensify fallow management
to balance immediate subsistence needs
with long-term ecological sustainability.
Shifting cultivation in Gunung Raya
Gunung Raya is a sub-district on the edge of
the Kerinci Seblat National Park. For
decades, households in this part of West
Sumatra have grown irrigated rice and relied
on the surrounding forest for the products
they ate and sold. However, in recent years,
population growth, the development of the
National Park, and improved access and
links to urban areas and services, have
changed local needs and aspirations.
Farming households in Gunung Raya have
developed a highly efficient and productive
multistorey tree-cropping system (agroforest) in mutual relationship with wet rice
cultivation. Commercial annual crops are
rotated with coffee and cinnamon. A “fallow period”, the period when the cinnamon trees are developing towards maturity,
allows soil fertility to regenerate. Because
of the similarity between these practices
and shifting cultivation and the high percentage of commercial crops, these farming practices are often referred to as “commercial shifting cultivation systems”.
In Kerinci, farming households secure an
adequate livelihood by consciously integrating forest management with agriculture to produce a combination of local and
exotic crops and tree species. They carefully plan how resources of land, labour,
capital and time can be optimally divided
between these different crops. This results
in several management phases of varying
intensity.
High management or annual crop phase
This cycle generally begins with the rejuvenation of coffee either by planting new
seedlings or coppicing (resprouting) old
coffee stumps. Coppicing leads to an earlier closure of the canopy. At the same time,
households cultivate commercial crops
such as groundnuts, chili and potatoes.
These annuals can be grown for about two
years or until the density of the coffee canopy hinders growth. This is the time when
farmers plant cinnamon trees in between
the coffee.
Medium management or coffee phase
The coffee harvest will continue for 2 to
3 years depending upon whether the cinnamon trees have been coppiced or new
seedlings are planted. Once the cinnamon
canopy has closed, coffee will be unable
to produce berries although the bushes
themselves will not die. During the cinnamon harvest the farmer can either cut
down the whole cinnamon tree or can harvest a number of branches to meet the
families immediate cash needs. The farm
household will usually decide to cut down
the coffee bushes before the cinnamon
harvest. If the household expects high coffee prices they may choose to keep the
mature coffee trees in the field. After the
cinnamon has been felled coffee will produce again a year later. Annual crops can
be planted in the open spaces between
the coffee trees until the canopy closes
again. In this way the farmer can go on
maintaining his coffee trees for many years
or he can allow the cinnamon to take over.
These differences in tree management are
the result of a complex decision-making
process, in which households try to balance the benefits of annual crops, coffee
and cinnamon.
Low management phase or fallow phase
The closure of the cinnamon canopy
marks the beginning of a “fallow-phase”.
The invasive fallow species
Austroeupatorium is allowed to establish
itself under the coffee and cinnamon. The
farmers use this species to increase soil
fertility so they can grow annual crops
without having to use fertilizers. Some
households actively spread the seeds to
ensure thick growth.
The length of the fallow period varies considerably. Cinnamon bark is harvested
when the household needs large sums of
money such as to meet the cost of a wedding or to pay hospital bills. Trees are usually harvested within 6 to 12 years.
Integration with the rice crop
Households in the research area have not
only been innovative in choosing perennial
species to suit the available resources. They
have also capitalised on the fact that they
can chose between a short-term high yielding rice variety and a longer-term indigenous variety. This gives a certain degree of
flexibility when deciding how resources
should be allocated between the management of the rice crop and the agroforest.
Chosing to cultivate the high-yielding rice
variety means that the farm family is fully
engaged in the rice field for four months till
the rice can finally be harvested. This is
affordable when the agroforest has entered
the medium or low management phase and
does not need much attention. During the
high management phase when the management of the agroforest needs full attention,
households often decide to grow the indigenous variety that matures in 9 months.
Labour requirements for this variety are
more or less evenly spread throughout the
growing season.
If the work load becomes a problem, tasks
are divided and the women usually continue to work in the rice field while the men
concentrate on the agroforest.
10 I L E I A N E W S L E T T E R • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 0
Photo: Paul Burgers
Research by the International Centre for Research in
Agroforestry (ICRAF) in Kerinci, West Sumatra,
Indonesia identified a flexible system in which a complementary relationship had developed between
indigenous forest management strategies and agriculture. Understanding the dynamics of this relationship
at household level provides us with insights into how
far such integrated agroforestry systems can be promoted among households in the forest margins to
help secure rural livelihoods.
Options for sustainable agriculture in the forest margins?
Indigenous strategies
Paul Burgers and Dede William
If coffee prices are high, coffee
trees will be kept on the field.
only one cycle, but since sharecroppers
are sure of the harvest, they are willing to
set up an agroforest. In fact, these arrangements are quite common in Southeast Asia
and have often contributed to the establishment of reconstructed forests.
Lower investment costs
Systems, which include perennials that
can be coppiced after “harvesting”, result
in a decrease in burning of fields. In
Kerinci, only small patches of collected
biomass are burned, as burning the whole
field will destroy the ability of trees to coppice. Coppicing trees save the cost the
labour needed for controlled burning and
makes these systems more profitable.
Supportive policies
Enabling and guiding such management
flexibility by farmers themselves is a challenge for policy makers and scientists who
must learn how farming communities are
trying to cope and adapt to outside pressures in a sustainable way.
■
Paul Burgers and Dede William, ICRAF, Indigenous
Fallow Management Network, JI. CIFOR, Situ Gede,
Sindang Barang, PO Box 161, Bogor 16001, Indonesia.
Phone: +62 251 625415 ext. 724; Fax: +62 251
625416; Email: P.Burgers@cgnet.com
References
Cairns M and Garrity DP, 1999. Improving shifting
cultivation in South East Asia by building on
indigenous fallow management strategies,
Agroforestry systems, Vol.47, Nos.1-3, p. 37-48.
Thomich TP, van Noordwijk M, Budidarsono S. et al
(eds). Alternatives to Slash and Burn in Indonesia;
summary report and synthesis of Phase II. ASB
Indonesia Report number 8, Bogor, Indonesia, 1998.
Raintree JB and Warner K, 1986. Agroforestry pathways for the intensification of shifting cultivation.
Agroforestry systems 4:39-54.
I L E I A N E W S L E T T E R • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 0 11
Photo: Paul Burgers
Box 1: An agroforest is like a
championship team in soccer
The preconditions for establishing an agroforest with good prospects of economic,
social and ecological sustainability were
described by one of the farmers in Kerinci,
Mr. Rustam. He compares his agroforest
with an “unbeatable” soccer-team.
“A good soccer team has pillars that can be
relied on,” he says. “They keep our interest
in the team. First, we have our attackers,
who regularly try to “score goals”, and keep
our attention. These are our annual crops -
groundnuts, chili, and potatoes. We plant
them when we begin developing our agroforest and they provide us with an immediate and regular source of income: they score
goals for us at regular intervals.
But we must also have a reliable defense for
when the “game” starts getting difficult.
This is coffee. Although we cannot harvest
coffee so often it usually gives us a higher
income. There are times though when this
defense is not enough and then we have to
rely on our goalkeeper: the cinnamon tree.
From cinnamon bark we can be sure of a
flexible income. If we need small amounts
of cash we harvest a few trees or branches.
If our needs are greater we will cut down all
trees at once.”
were expected to cut down large amounts
of cinnamon and earn a huge profit.
However, there was no large-scale harvesting, on the contrary, farmers argued they
now needed to cut only a few cinnamon
trees to satisfy their needs.
Flexibility
Usually, indigenous strategies are of a
resilient nature. This enables adaptation to
change, through a flexible use of resources, land, labour and time. Besides resource
use, other components in the total farming
system (like coffee and cinnamon in the
above system) can be flexibly managed and
harvested. These flexible components
seem to be crucial for the establishment
of multi-phase agroforests, in particular in
areas where agroforests add to labour
pressure within the total farming system.
Low-input versus high input
Indigenous strategies have evolved with
low cost and in most cases with little or no
expensive outside technologies or capital.
Crops which require relatively high inputs
nevertheless may be a viable option if
initial investments are quickly repaid. A
mixture of higher input short-term output
crops with longer-term low input crops
may combine well. They can also make
multi-phase agroforests a profitable and
sustainable option for livelihood security
when population pressure intensifies.
Harvest security
Closely related to land availability is the
tenure system, which legitimises access to
land. Depending on the local situation,
land security may or may not be a prerequisite for long-term investment options.
The research showed that harvest security
of tree crops is a crucial factor for planting
trees. Rich households often use sharecroppers to establish the agroforest for
them. The arrangements normally last for
Lessons learned from the villagers
This highly complex and precise planning
developed by villagers gives us an insight
into how more sustainable, integrated
farming systems can be developed.
Understanding the household economy
within a socio-economic, political and
environmental context helps us understand the opportunities and limitations
confronting farming households when
they must decide between developing
such integrated systems or focus on food
cropping alone. The following key issues
have to be considered.
Indigenous strategies
The success of multi-phase agroforestry
depends on how it fits into local biophysical and multi-level socio-economic conditions. What is the balance between shortterm livelihood security and long-term sustainability and how flexible is the system
when local production conditions change.
The dynamics of indigenous strategies
give us vital information about whether or
not sustainable solutions are being developed in changing contexts and the process this involves. Many farmers explained
their objectives and management strategies for indigenous agroforestry systems to
us. From their experiences we concluded
that any development of such systems was
dependent on certain opportunities and
constraints.
Satisfaction of needs
Households often focus on the satisfaction
of needs rather than profit from the crop
they chose because of distortions in the
wider economy. Households may reject
technically feasible, yield increasing, highly profitable innovations because they
involve greater specialization, and raise
costs and risks. In Kerinci, during the
monetary crisis in Indonesia, the price of
cinnamon bark rose sharply. Households
The farmer can
either cut down
the whole
cinnamon tree
or can harvest a
number of
branches to
meet immediate
cash needs.