Municipal commonage in South Africa: a critique of artificial dichotomies in policy debates on agriculture

The paper critiques Vetter's (in this issue) assertion that commercialisation of smallholder agriculture holds dangers for sustainable rangeland management. The paper argues that a range of policy options are required, including commercialisation and subsistence farming, large-scale and smallholder farming, a range of land tenure options, rural and peri-urban farming, and part-time farming. The case of municipal commonage land is useful to show the effectiveness of a flexible range of policy options regarding land ownership, farming scale and the social nature of farming. However, the key requirement, in all cases, is effective institutional development.     

The extraction of rattan-like lianas in the new world tropics: a possible prototype for sustainable forest management

The tropical forests of the Americas contain great biological diversity yet they are being rapidly destroyed by population pressure, injudicious logging, and inappropriate government policies. In this article we explain how the extraction of rattan-like lianas could represent a sustainable system of forest management in which smallholder incomes are increased while relieving deforestation pressures.     

小农户衔接现代农业有助于提升其正规信贷可获得性吗?——基于2019年欠发达地区农村普惠金融调查数据

为探索小农户衔接现代农业缓解其正规信贷约束的可行性,基于2019年欠发达地区农村普惠金融调查数据,对小农户衔接现代农业的方式进行识别与分类,从是否衔接、不同衔接方式、衔接广度3个维度分析小农户衔接现代农业对其正规信贷可获得性的直接影响,并考察增收机制和增信机制的间接作用以及小农户资源禀赋的异质性。结果表明:小农户衔接现代农业有助于提升其正规信贷可获得性;不同衔接方式对正规信贷可获得性产生差异化影响,其中龙头企业带动型衔接方式的促进作用最强;衔接广度的增加对小农户正规信贷可获得性的提升具有促进作用;增收机制和增信机制是衔接现代农业行为缓解小农户正规信贷约束的重要渠道;劳动力资源充足、农业经营能力较强和位于西部地区的小农户通过衔接现代农业的方式提升其正规信贷可获得性的作用更明显。     

CONSTRAINTS TO THE ADOPTION OF RICE-FISH FARMING BY SMALLHOLDERS IN BANGLADESH: A FARMING SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

In spite of its potential, the adoption of rice-fish farming among smallholders in Bangladesh is low. This paper seeks to explain this low adoption by evaluating the rice-fish technology as one element of the household farming system. The adoption of the technology is associated with a range of technical, human, and institutional constraints. Rice-fish technology is not structured to address the food security goal of smallholders and, therefore, is adopted by only those who are better placed to assume the risks. This paper concludes that the adoption of the technology among this group of smallholders would accelerate when policymakers acknowledge its constraints and structure extension services accordingly.     

非洲小农经济状况与我国援非农业技术示范中心对策

分析影响非洲小农收入的主要因素,非洲粮食作物种植状况,非洲农用土地状况及非洲农业政策状况,指出援非农业技术示范中心的优势与劣势,并提出相应的对策。     

Smallholder adoption of soil conservation technologies: evidence from upland projects in the Philippines

Soil erosion due to smallholder agriculture in upland areas of the Philippines is widely regarded as the country's most serious environmental problem. There have been many upland development projects involving the promotion of soil conservation and agroforestry measures. Yet adoption of such practices has been minimal. A research project was commissioned to investigate the technical and socio-economic factors limiting adoption of recommended soil conservation technologies. The project involved case studies of seven locations where conservation farming had been intensively promoted and adopted by a significant number of farmers. The research methods involved a combination of reconnaissance or rapid rural appraisal methods followed by a questionnaire survey of a sample of farmers from each site. This paper summarizes the project's findings regarding the farm-level factors associated with the adoption of recommended soil conservation technologies in the case-study sites. Its focus is on the attributes of the farm-household influencing the adoption-decision process, and the consequences of adoption at the level of the farm-household system. It was found that conservation farming technologies, particularly hedgerows, were widely seen by farmers who were aware of them as useful and even necessary, but it had required resource-intensive project intervention to get the adoption process going, and adoption was often constrained by farmers' specific circumstances, rather than their personal attributes and perceptions. A wider range of more profitable and less demanding conservation technologies was needed, promoted more flexibly and with greater, on-going support for farmers in their efforts to experiment with improved farming systems. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Forging alliances: Coffee grower and chain leader partnerships to improve productivity and coffee quality in Papua New Guinea

Partnership discourse is making advances in development dialogue as a means to improve the livelihoods of the agrarian populace. In Papua New Guinea, productive partnerships flourished during the early growth of the coffee industry. After the demise of plantations and rural mills in the lead up to political independence, the support services that plantations used to provide to smallholders, including centralised processing, have ceased as have price incentives for quality. Consequently, smallholders began to produce coffee of inconsistent quality and their productivity has also declined. However, coffee value chain partnerships have the potential to reverse the present decline of coffee production and increase the productivity of coffee farmers and address the inconsistency and the supply of low‐grade coffee. Using two case studies of farmer cooperatives, we investigate collective action and also assess partnerships among present value chain actors. The case studies were supported with interviews of value chain actors to gain further insights into partnerships with farmer groups. This paper illustrates that through collective action and partnerships, coffee farmers can improve coffee production and quality, enhance governance systems in grower groups, attract community development services and diversify into other entrepreneurial activities.     

On-farm evaluation of the establishment of clonal rubber in multistrata agroforests in Jambi,Indonesia

Perennial tree crops are often grown in complex multistrata systems that incorporate natural vegetation. These systems contribute simultaneously to sustaining rural livelihoods and to the conservation of biodiversity, but their productivity is usually low. Introduction of high yielding germplasm, usually selected in monocultural plantations, is a potential way to increase productivity, but a critical requirement is that such plants can be established in a competitive multispecies environment. The establishment of clonal planting stock in the jungle rubber agroforests of Indonesia was explored through participatory on-farm research. The trial involved four farmers who grew clonal rubber trees in a total of 20 plots, constituting five replicate experimental blocks spread across four farms. Unexpectedly, vertebrate pest damage by monkeys (Presbytis melalophos nobilis) and wild pigs (Sus scrofa) was the most important influence on establishment, explaining almost 70% of the variation in rubber tree growth. The amount of labour invested in weeding was also positively correlated with rubber tree growth. Farmers generally decided to completely cut back vegetation between rows of rubber trees, including potentially valuable trees, rather than weeding within the rows and selectively pruning trees in the inter-row. Farmers thought that the inter-row vegetation would harbour vertebrate pests and compete with the clonal rubber, and they had access to fruits, firewood and other non-timber forest products from other land. Thus, contrary to expectations, when offered clonal germplasm, farmers opted to use plantation monoculture methods to protect what they considered a valuable asset, rather than maintain the traditional multispecies strategy they use with local germplasm. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

In situ off‐farm work in the transport industry among oil palm smallholders in Sabah: Negotiating the borders of licit and illegal activities

This paper examines the informal transport sector within the smallholder oil palm economies of Kinabatangan and Lahad Datu areas of eastern Sabah by looking at the metaphoric border that is constructed between licit and illegal activities that take place on roads. It describes the work of two groups of drivers, namely, those who are themselves smallholders who provide a crucial service to the community in getting their fresh fruit bunches to mills on time; and the piret (pirate) taxis who transport passengers including foreign nationals, some of whom are illegal workers. Many have been driving for some time, thereby challenging the notion about off‐farm work as providing a temporary safety net to smallholders. Drivers whose permits may be current may have used illegal means (such as meminggir – logging without licence), to accumulate the initial funds for acquiring their vehicles and necessary permits. Moreover, their clients are unconcerned about their ‘illegal’ status. Consequently, this paper maintains that there is no agreed‐upon norms about legality/illegality, and law enforcement being uneven, the zone in which drivers operate is a fluid one.