The Rationality of Shifting Cultivation Systems: Labor Productivity Revisited

Nielsen, Uffe N.; Mertz, Ole; Noweg, Gabriel Tonga

doi:10.1007/s10745-006-9014-4

Cited by 68 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…This perception is being challenged by numerous studies, which show that shifting cultivation in many situations can be a rational economic and environmental choice for poor farmers in the tropics (Toledo et al, 2003;Ickowitz, 2006;Nielsen et al, 2006;Harvey et al, 2008). Our results support the view that shifting cultivation can have a transitory impact on forest carbon stocks and may contribute to the maintenance of ecosystem services, such as carbon reservoirs in human-modified landscapes (Ickowitz, 2006;Fischer et al, 2008;Harvey et al, 2008;DeClerck et al, 2010;Padoch & Pinedo-Vasquez, 2010).…”

Section: Accepted Articlesupporting

confidence: 78%

Traditional shifting agriculture: tracking forest carbon stock and biodiversity through time in western Panama

Pelletier

Codjia

Potvin

2012

Global Change Biology

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Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) requires developing countries to quantify green-house gas emissions and removals from forests in a manner that is robust, transparent, and as accurate as possible. While shifting cultivation is a dominant practice in several developing countries, there is still very limited information available on how to monitor this land-use practice for REDD+ as little is known about the areas of shifting cultivation or the net carbon balance. In the present work, we propose and test a methodology to monitor the effect of the shifting cultivation on above-ground carbon stocks. We combine multi-year remote sensing information, taken from a 12-year period, with an in-depth community forest carbon stock inventory in Palo Seco Forest Reserve, western Panama. With remote sensing, we were able to separate four forest classes expressing different forest-use intensity and timesince-intervention which demonstrate expected trends in above-ground carbon stocks. The addition of different interventions observed over time is shown to be a good predictor, with remote sensing variables explaining 64.2% of the variation in forest carbon stocks in cultivated landscapes. Multi-temporal and multi-spectral medium resolution satellite imagery is shown to be adequate for tracking land-use dynamics of the agriculture-fallow cycle. The results also indicate that, over time, shifting cultivation has a transitory effect on forest carbon stocks in the study area. This is due to the rapid recovery of forest carbon stocks, which results in limited net emissions. Finally, community participation yielded important additional benefits to measuring

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Section: Accepted Articlesupporting

confidence: 78%

Traditional shifting agriculture: tracking forest carbon stock and biodiversity through time in western Panama

Pelletier

Codjia

Potvin

2012

Global Change Biology

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“…Relationships between fallow development, labor, and yields appeared early in the shifting cultivation literature (Nye and Greenland 1960, Boserup 1965, Clarke 1976, although these have not been thoroughly addressed with empirical measurements (Mertz 2002, Nielsen et al 2006, Mertz et al 2008. We provide evidence from local rationales that the reading of the fallow is a major source of information upon which farmers rely to make their decisions in shifting cultivation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Instead of being only pushed and pulled by external driving forces, however, farmers are active and informed actors in their responses to changes in their environment (Cramb et al 2009, Feintrenie et al 2010. Farmers' decisions to continue with shifting cultivation or to change their land-use practices involve their perceptions and attitudes toward risks and can be based as much on economic rationales as on tradition or other reasons (Nielsen et al 2006). Different environmental and socioeconomic contexts provide different opportunities and constraints for agricultural diversification and livelihood strategies (Almekinders et al 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of Amazonian anthropogenic soils in shifting cultivation: learning from farmers’ rationales

Junqueira¹,

Almekinders²,

Stomph³

et al. 2016

E&S

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. 2016. The role of Amazonian anthropogenic soils in shifting cultivation: learning from farmers' rationales. Ecology and Society 21 (1) ABSTRACT. We evaluated farmers' rationales to understand their decision making in relation to the use of fertile anthropogenic soils, i.e., Amazonian dark earths (ADE), and for dealing with changes in shifting cultivation in Central Amazonia. We analyzed qualitative information from 196 interviews with farmers in 21 riverine villages along the Madeira River. In order to decide about crop management options to attain their livelihood objectives, farmers rely on an integrated and dynamic understanding of their biophysical and social environment. Farmers associate fallow development with higher crop yields and lower weed pressure, but ADE is always associated with high yields and high weeding requirements. Amazonian dark earths are also seen as an opportunity to grow different crops and/or grow crops in more intensified management systems. However, farmers often maintain simultaneously intensive swiddens on ADE and extensive swiddens on nonanthropogenic soils. Farmers acknowledge numerous changes in their socioeconomic environment that affect their shifting cultivation systems, particularly their growing interaction with market economies and the incorporation of modern agricultural practices. Farmers considered that shifting cultivation systems on ADE tend to be more prone to changes leading to intensification, and we identified cases, e.g., swiddens used for watermelon cultivation, in which market demand led to overintensification and resulted in ADE degradation. This shows that increasing intensification can be a potential threat to ADE and can undermine the importance of these soils for agricultural production, for the conservation of agrobiodiversity, and for local livelihoods. Given that farmers have an integrated knowledge of their context and respond to socioeconomic and agro-ecological changes in their environment, we argue that understanding farmers' knowledge and rationales is crucial to identify sustainable pathways for the future of ADE and of smallholder agriculture in Amazonia.

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“…Zaini (2004) and Boa (2008) reported that wage affects household income in Indonesia. Nielsen et al (2006) mentioned that the use of labourers in wet rice farming becoming more efficient due to the use of agrochemical inputs and heavily subsidized investments in terraces.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The potential of understorey plants from Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park (West Java, Indonesia) as cervixs anticancer agents

Karmini

2017

Biodiversitas

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The Rationality of Shifting Cultivation Systems: Labor Productivity Revisited

Cited by 68 publications

References 24 publications

Traditional shifting agriculture: tracking forest carbon stock and biodiversity through time in western Panama

Traditional shifting agriculture: tracking forest carbon stock and biodiversity through time in western Panama

The role of Amazonian anthropogenic soils in shifting cultivation: learning from farmers’ rationales

The potential of understorey plants from Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park (West Java, Indonesia) as cervixs anticancer agents

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The Rationality of Shifting Cultivation Systems: Labor Productivity Revisited

Cited by 68 publications

References 24 publications

Traditional shifting agriculture: tracking forest carbon stock and biodiversity through time in western Panama

Traditional shifting agriculture: tracking forest carbon stock and biodiversity through time in western Panama

The role of Amazonian anthropogenic soils in shifting cultivation: learning from farmers&#8217; rationales

The potential of understorey plants from Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park (West Java, Indonesia) as cervixs anticancer agents

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The role of Amazonian anthropogenic soils in shifting cultivation: learning from farmers’ rationales