Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
supply. The area needed for subsistence on a rice-based diet may be estimated from
the daily rice intake of such diets, being 252 kg per capita per year (Hobbes 2005).
A family of 6 then would need 1,512 kg year
−1
, and with the local productivity of
6,600 kg ha
−1
(Table 11.3), this would amount to 0.23 ha. Note that this is almost
exactly the area that the agroforestry farmers keep under rice or wheat (Table 11.6).
For the agroforestry farmers, the
income
security argument against agroforestry in
general is fortified into a
subsistence
security argument against expansion of their
agroforestry acreage.
The general atmosphere of insecurity surrounding the agroforestry option in this
region is augmented by a lack of government backing. The agroforestry plots were
established under the auspices of a project that brought farmers the superficially
needed elements of skills, seedlings and attention, but failed to lay a structural basis
under the agroforestry. When the project was closed down the farmers were again
on their own, left to the whims of private middlemen and far-away consumer mar-
kets. No back-up is provided to agroforestry in any suitable form. There is no agro-
forestry extension, no market information, no price guarantees, no on-farm research
and development, no specific credit for agroforestry, no quality seedlings supply, no
support to start cooperatives or added-value activities or any suchlike actions.
Meanwhile rice and wheat are backed up by the government providing subsidies,
support prices, soft loans and income tax concessions and recently a comprehensive
crop insurance scheme for the farmers.
4
These services are not only important for
the farmers as such; they also emanate the general message that these crops are
important for the government and therewith the safest bet for any farmer.
11.7
Discussion and Conclusion
Starting out on a brief methodological note, it may be remarked that what we think
have been our key insights have grown neither from a purely outsider perspective
(the financial analysis), nor from a purely insiders' view (the farmers' opinions in
Table 11.5), but from a critical juxtaposition of the two. It has been the financial
analysis
versus
the farmers' behaviour of non-adoption and non-expansion, and
also the farmers' opinions
versus
our own analysis of motivational factors. A criti-
cal attitude towards farmer's voiced reasons for non-adoption is justified,
inter alia
,
by the general phenomenon that if an actor (farmer, government agent, country)
fails to do the good thing, it is always better for the actor to blame this on lack of
capacity than on lack of motivation. Lacking capacity, one gets rewards (credit,
capacity building, etc.), but lack of motivation elicits penalties.
The financial analysis of litchi-based agroforestry system has shown that in this
region, agroforestry is solidly more profitable than are the seasonal crops of rice
4
A similar pattern has been observed in the Philippines where government support is lacking for
both the agroforestry and monocrop (corn), but farmers can use corn and not agroforestry as a
collateral for loans from private traders (Snelder et al., 2007).
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