Improving Productivity, Profitability and Sustainability of Degraded Grasslands Through Tree-Based Land Use Systems in the Philippines - Smallholder Tree Growing for Rural Development and Environmental Services - page 285

Table 14.2 Frequency distribution of smallholder
farmer-respondents, Claveria, Misamis Oriental,
The Philippines
Category Number Percent

Adopter 165 86

Non-adopter 27 14

Total 192 100

Table 14.3 Distribution of tree-based systems adopters by length of
adoption, Claveria, Misamis Oriental, The Philippines
Length of adoption (Years) Number Percent

Not later than 5 years ago 81 49

6-10 years 48 29

11 years and above 36 22

Total 165 100

Mean (Std. Dev.) 6.64 (5.11)

While the proportion of tree-based system adoption was high, the extent of adop-
tion was considerably low. Tree-based system adopters only allocated a relatively
smaller share of their farms to timber and fruit trees rather than to maize and other
annual crops combined (Table 14.4). For instance, Gmelina arborea was planted by
about 58 percent of the adopters but the average current land use share was only 4.8
percent, which is equivalent to 0.11 ha. The average land use share for other tree
species was also minimal (0.07 to 3.7 percent). Nonetheless, the average land use
share reported for Gmelina could be considered as an underestimate of actual land
use share since it includes all tree-based adopters in the calculation, even those with-
out Gmelina in their tree-crop portfolio. When only those adopters with Gmelina are
considered, the average land use share ranged from 10 to 15 percent. This corrobo-
rates with the findings of Nelson et al. (1996) and Shively (1996) stating that an
optimal share of the tree - or hedgerow component in a tree-crop portfolio ranges
from 10 to 20 percent.
In terms of annual crop production, tree-based adopters allocated on average a rel-
atively smaller land use share (in percentage) for maize production (58 percent) com-
pared to their non-adopter counterparts (68 percent). This is primarily because
adopters devoted certain parcels to fast-growing timber species (e.g., Gmelina arbo-
rea , Eucalyptus deglupta and Acacia mangium ), fruit trees and other cash crops in
combination with maize crop or upland rice. Since tree-based system adopters have
relatively bigger farm size than non-adopters, the smaller percentage has translated to
a larger area devoted to maize production for adopters compared to non-adopters.
Besides trees and annual crop production, banana production constituted the
next highest average land use share in the whole farm portfolio for both adopters
(4 percent) and non-adopters (10 percent). This was followed by the fallow system
(10 percent for adopters and eight percent for non-adopters), which is aimed at
restoring soil fertility.