One of the aspects of poverty as currently defined is the lack of voice or the lack of empowerment and the feeling of not being able to take events into one’s own hands. This aspect of poverty is difficult to quantify as yet, but it is an important element in the debate on the rural poor, deforestation and natural resource management. In this lecture note we will introduce: •methods to collect and appraise farmers’ ecological knowledge in a formal manner and analyse the way this knowledge and value system complements the more formalised science we have discussed in other Lecture Notes; •methods to get the views of local communities on the options they have and the constraints they face more explicitly represented, and •ways to get the farmer’s ‘voice’ heard in dialogues with local and national policymakers.
Tag: slash and burn agriculture
Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn agriculture, symposium ID-6: 15th International Soil Science Congress, Acapulco, Mexico 1994
Low-external-input alternatives to shifting cultivation in South Sumatera
Agriculture still constitutes the major interaction between mankind and the natural environment. In the process of ‘agricultural development’ local environmental constraints may be overcome, step by step, but side-effects of this development will often lead to new environmental constraints. These new constraints may act at a larger scale, regional or national /global and may jeopardize the sustainability of the farming system itself. Table 1 gives some criteria foe judging whether farming systems may be considered ‘sustainable’. Non-sustainability can be caused by not fulfilling the criteria at any of the three scales mentioned. Usually to the farmers only criteria at the local level are obvious.
Agroforestry – a policy imperative for Vietnam
Agroforestry has been traditionally practiced, although it does not go under the name ‘agroforestry’. The VAC-R-systems (vuon-ao-chuong-rung or garden-pond-livestock-forest) expanded largely in the 1960-90s. Taungya is often practiced to introduce reforestation by intercropping annu-al crops with tree seedlings during the first 1-3 years until the tree canopy has closed.‘Integrated agroforestry’ is originally used to denote the integration of trees and crops (in one field), such as intercropping, alley cropping, parkland – sometimes includ-ing livestock. Agroforestry in the northern uplands of Viet Nam can at best be described as temporarily integrated in transition from segregated mosaic monocultures of maize or cassava to timber-tree mono-plantation (typically Aca-cia, Eucalypts, Manglietia, Melia).
Alternatives to slash and burn
Tropical forests in Asia, Africa and Latin America are being rapidly transformed through slash-and-burn. Traditionally, slash-and-burn is a system for land use — shifting cultiva-tion — based on alternating food cropping periods with periods of regrowth of vegetation (fallow). Increasing population pressure has shortened the fallow periods dramatically, making the system unsustainable in many areas. Slash-and-burn is also a technique to convert forests into permanent agricultural land, or into other land use practices, including large-scale tree crops (rubber, oil palm, timber). In Asia, shifting cultivation is becoming less common and much of the slash-and-burn is related to permanent conversion of forests by smallholders, large operators and government-sponsored resettlement projects. The consequences of this are devastating, in terms of climate change, soil erosion and degradation, watershed degradation and loss of biodiversity. The Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn Programme is built around two issues — the global environ-mental effects of slash-and-burn and the technological and policy options to alleviate those effects. The programme assumes that the development of agroforestry-based forms of intensified landuse as an alternative to slash-and-burn can help to alleviate poverty and improve human welfare. By identifying alternatives to slash-and-burn and providing options from which farmers can choose, the ASB programme aims to provide benefits at a range of scales, from household to global. ASB is a system-wide initiative of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Since it began in 1992, the programme has developed into a consortium of nine inter-national research centres and 62 national research institutes, universities and other government and non-government organizations. ICRAF is the convening centre for ASB because there is a close link between agroforestry options and alternatives to unsustainable slash-and-burn practices. ICRAF’s contributes to the ASB Programme in its research in the three humid ecoregions of Latin America, Southeast Asia and the humid lowlands of west Africa.
Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn in Indonesia: a journey of discovery
Alternatives to slash-and-burn (ASB) stands for three thrusts, which can be linked to the forest, fire and crops parts of the slash-and-burn cycle:Alleviate poverty – secure access to food, either via providing sufficient income or by home production is a per-requisite for a humane development pathway,Sinks and sources of greenhouse gasses during land use change should be better understood; mechanisms should be developed for linking local and global cost and benefits,Biodiversity conservation is a global imperative with consequences at the local level; the relationships between human land use and biodiversity conservation should be quantified to balance local and global interests, either by a segregation of ‘conservation’ and ‘production’ areas or by an integration in multi-function land use patterns.
Alternatives to Slash and Burn: summary report of phase I
During the first phase of the Alternatives to Slash and Burn (ASB) project, we forme interdisiplinary teams involving scientists from national research institute, universities an NGO’s, as well as from international institutions. In the meantime the outcome of the early site selection process was reviewed on the basis of the guidelines for the characterization process. It was decided that fozr sites would be characterized in order to cover the various ecological zones and the major expected gradients within these zones. A project management structure was developed with a national steering committee to ensure linkages with national policies, a technical working group and a secretariat. Through a competitive mechanism partners were found for the various aspects of the characterization work. Two trainin courses/workshops were held to strengthen the scientific base of the work on carbon dynamics and greenhouse gas emissions and on participatory rural appraisal methods. At the end oh Phase 1 a national workshop was held to review the results abtained and prepare plan for Phase