Crop booms as regime shifts

Abstract

A crop boom is a sudden, nonlinear and intense expansion of a new crop. Despite their large impacts, boom-bust dynamics are not well understood; booms are largely unpredictable and difficult to steer once they unfold. Based on the striking resemblances between land regime shifts and crop booms, we apply complex systems theory, highlighting the potential for regime shifts, to provide new insights about crop boom dynamics. We analyse qualitative and quantitative data of rubber and banana plantation expansion in two forest frontier regions of northern Laos. We show that preconditions , including previous booms, explain the occurrence (why) of booms, and triggers like policy and market changes explain their timing (when). Yet, the most important features of booms, their intensity and nonlinearity (how), strongly depended on internal self-reinforcing feedbacks . We identify built-in feedbacks (neighbourhood effects and imitation) and emergent feedbacks (land rush) and show that they were social in nature, multi-scale from plot to region and subject to thresholds. We suggest that these are regular features of booms and propose a definition and causal-mechanistic explanation of crop booms, examining the overlap between booms and regime shifts and the role of frontiers. We then identify opportunities for management interventions before, during and after booms.

Explaining the emergence of land-use frontiers

“…The short answer is: probably not, as many aspects in this theory remain insufficiently quantified, and contingency and exogenous forces do play a major role in frontier emergence, but we can hopefully identify places that have a certain number of the characteristics that make them prone to see frontiers emerge within. 1 In secondary frontiers that experience crop booms where one crop replaces another in already established agricultural landscapes, like banana boom replacing paddy in northern Laos (123), the resource (land) is likely seen as less freely available, as paddy lands are already clearly delineated, with secure tenure. In that case, incentives might favour relatively intensive land uses, though likely less than in regions where the frontier land use is already well established and consolidated.…”

“…As a counterpoint to expectation fuelled by appearances is the spread of information based on tangible, economic success, for example, of early innovation adopters. Such early successes can trigger processes of imitation that become self-reinforcing and can lead to boom-like expansion of agricultural crops [ 123 ].…”

“…Eventually a certain critical mass is reached at which agglomeration economies take over and frontier expansion becomes self-reinforcing. Moreover, such self-reinforcing processes as well as the initial dynamics of anticipation can be further reinforced by other positive feedback loops, which are typically social, such as imitation, which feed into one another [ 123 ]. Boom and bust cycles also contribute to the frontier expansion [ 123 , 124 ].…”

“… 1 In secondary frontiers that experience crop booms where one crop replaces another in already established agricultural landscapes, like banana boom replacing paddy in northern Laos ( 123 ), the resource (land) is likely seen as less freely available, as paddy lands are already clearly delineated, with secure tenure. In that case, incentives might favour relatively intensive land uses, though likely less than in regions where the frontier land use is already well established and consolidated.…”