Traditional Subsistence Farming of Smallholder Agroforestry Systems in Indonesia: A Review

Abstract

Agroforestry has been practiced for decades and is undoubtedly an important source of income for Indonesian households living near forests. However, there are still many cases of poverty among farmers due to a lack of ability to adopt advanced technology. This literature review aims to identify the characteristics and factors causing the occurrence of agricultural subsistence and analyze its implications for the level of farmer welfare and the regional forestry industry. The literature analysis conducted reveals that small land tenure, low literacy rates, and lack of forest maintenance are the main causes of the subsistence of small agroforestry farmers. Another reason is that subsistence-oriented agroforestry practices are considered a strong form of smallholder resilience. All of these limitations have implications for low land productivity and high-sawn timber waste from community forests. To reduce the subsistence level of farmers, government intervention is needed, especially in providing managerial assistance packages, capital assistance, and the marketing of forest products. Various agroforestry technologies are available but have not been implemented consistently by farmers. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an integrated collaboration between researchers, farmers, and regionally owned enterprises (BUMD) to increase access to technology and markets. Although it is still difficult to realize, forest services, such as upstream–downstream compensation and carbon capture, have the potential to increase farmer income.

Clusterization of Agroforestry Farmers using K-Means Cluster Algorithm and Elbow Method

“…The average area of cultivated land by farmers in this study (1.52 ha) is slightly larger than farmers in Sumber Agung Village, Bandarlampung City (1.25 ha) (Kholifah et al 2017), and Wiyono Village, Pesawaran Regency (Bella et al 2019) which is located nearby to the study area. The size of the land area was considered to have a significant influence on total farmer income (Achmad et al 2022;Desmiwati et al 2021). In addition, plant types were also considered a significant factor influencing the farmer's income (Achmad et al 2022).…”

Promoting agroforestry for increasing land cover and sustaining livelihood through Social Forestry schemes in Indonesia

“…The combination of limited land ownership and financial capital as well as low average literacy, are the main factors causing smallholders to be unable to increase their income from agroforestry practices. It needs a feasible strategic effort to intensify forest management using the agroforestry model by optimizing the growing space and maintaining plants by applying cultivation technology [13].…”

“…The implementation of traditional agroforestry still has several weaknesses, including limited land ownership and financial capital, low education level, poor agroforestry knowledge, poor perception of agroforestry benefits, and management practices [13]. This paper is aimed to provide plant growth performance and survival rate data in the establishment of agroforestry demonstration plots in three different schemes of SF in Indonesia, namely Paru Village Forest (VF) in West Sumatra, Cempaka Forestry Partnership (FP) in Lampung, Tuar Tana Community Forestry (CF) in East Nusa Tenggara, in collaboration between Forestry and Environment Research, Development and Innovation Agency-MoEF with the Asian Forest Cooperation Organization (AFoCO), which is expected to be a lesson learned in achieving the successful implementation of agroforestry in social forestry areas.…”

The Role of Agroforestry in Supporting Food Security in Small Islands (Case in Pahawang Island, Indonesia)

“…Smallholder farmers also prefer to invest in short term crops with continuous yields even if the yields are small. This is because most smallholder farmers need certainty of short-term income from uncertain long-term income [33].…”