Agricultural Settlement and Land Use in Mountains - Mountain Geography: Physical and Human Dimensions - page 557

FIGURE 11.10 Rice terraces and village, Dudh Kosi watershed, Nepal. (Photo by S. F. Cunha.)
Unlike shifting cultivation, terraced farming is increasing in the developing world in
response to exponential population growth. Each year, farmers excavate ever-narrowing
terraces higher up the mountainsides of Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere. The
human excavation coupled with deforestation was thought to increase the catastroph-
ic floods in the Granges-Brahmaputra Delta, and by extrapolation, in low-lying areas of
the Mekong, Ayerwaddy, and Salween Rivers (Ives and Messerli 1989). This debate is
discussed in more detail below under “Agroforestry.”
Terracing is becoming more evident outside the tropics in midlatitude wine-produ-
cing regions, where escalating land rents justify the extraordinary labor costs. In con-
trast, most Andean and Southern European peoples abandoned terracing long ago, and
the absence of human tending now results in landslides and gully erosion.
Cash Crop and Plantation Agriculture
An increasing number of sedentary tropical highland farmers supplement subsistence
with one or more cash crops. These include various spices, nuts, and seeds that find
their way into regional and international markets. For example, although most chili
peppers are indigenous to South America, they are cultivated and used on every con-
tinent. The miniature Thai hot peppers ( Capsicum frutescens ) raised in Southeast Asi-
an mountains appear in Latin American, African, and Asian cooking. Mountain farmers
throughout India, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea supplement
their food yields with nuts from the betel palm ( Areca catechu ). Chewing this walnut-
sized kernel releases arecoline, a mild central nervous system stimulant that is also