This open access book is about understanding the processes involved in the transformation of smallholder rice farming in the Lower Mekong Basin from a low-yielding subsistence activity to one ...producing the surpluses needed for national self-sufficiency and a high-value export industry. For centuries, farmers in the Basin have regarded rice as “white gold”, reflecting its centrality to their food security and well-being. In the past four decades, rice has also become a commercial crop of great importance to Mekong farmers, augmenting but not replacing its role in securing their subsistence. This book is based on collaborative research to (a) compare the current situation and trajectories of rice farmers within and between different regions of the Lower Mekong, (b) explore the value chains linking rice farmers with new technologies and input and output markets within and across national borders, and (c) understand the changing role of government policies in facilitating the on-going evolution of commercial rice farming. An introductory section places the research in geographical and historical context. Four major sections deal in turn with studies of rice farming, value chains, and policies in Northeast Thailand, Central Laos, Southeastern Cambodia, and the Mekong Delta. The final section examines the implications for rice policy in the region as a whole.
The oil palm boom has prompted governments and plantation companies to find ways to incorporate customary landholders in large-scale plantation developments. This paper examines the joint-venture ...model that has been widely promoted in Sarawak, Malaysia. Principal–agent theory is used to analyze the structural relations between the actors in joint-venture projects—the landholders, the government agency that acts as their trustee, and the private investor. The analysis shows that unequal access to information and influence has compromised the stated objectives of the joint-venture schemes, leaving customary landholders vulnerable to significant exploitation and losses. Thus there has been a systematic failure to achieve the anticipated developmental outcomes.
The policy narrative underpinning the current rapid expansion of large-scale, private, oil palm plantations in Sarawak, Malaysia, implies a dualistic conception of the agrarian transformation ...underway, such as prevailed in the 1950s. This narrative is inconsistent with the history of smallholder commercialisation in Sarawak. Post-1981 policy has sought to limit smallholder development and deliver large land areas to private estates, thus 're-inventing' a dualistic agrarian structure. Oil palm expansion in Sarawak has various potential pathways and is driven in its present direction, not by dualistic economics, but the exercise of state power to maximise opportunities for surplus extraction and political patronage.
In Northern Laos, as elsewhere in the Southeast Asian uplands, there is an agricultural transition underway from subsistence production based on shifting cultivation to commercial production based on ...tree crops. In response to demand from China, rubber smallholdings are being established by shifting cultivators in Northern Laos, encouraged by government land-use policy. We examine the bio-economics of smallholder rubber production in an established rubber-growing village and model the likely expansion of smallholder rubber in Northern Laos. Data were obtained from key informants, group interviews, direct observation, and a farm-household survey. Latex yields were estimated using the Bioeconomic Rubber Agroforestry Support System (BRASS). A financial model was developed to estimate the net present value for a representative rubber smallholding. This model was then combined with spatial data in a Geographical Information System (GIS) to predict the likely expansion of rubber based on resource quality and accessibility. Implications are drawn for upland development in the region.
Over recent decades a structural transformation has affected agriculture in the frontier areas of Malaysian Borneo and Outer Island Indonesia with the rapid conversion of agricultural lands, fallows, ...and formerly forested areas into oil palm. These frontiers have similar positions in the international political economy of oil palm and have complementary resource endowments. In both cases, state planners face the common challenges of finding a disciplined labour force, delivering land for estate development, maintaining local legitimacy, and dealing with local contestation. Yet there are significant differences in systems of governance and policy frameworks regarding land, shifting capacity of state actors to facilitate the transformation of these agrarian frontiers, and changing degrees of local, national and international contestation. Considering the generic and the specific elements at play in each case, this paper argues that analogous policy narratives have shaped the ways in which landholders have been engaged in the process of oil palm expansion in Malaysia and Indonesia. In both cases, with the shift from state-led to neoliberal governance approaches to agricultural development, the 'frontier' has been created and transformed through policy narratives that facilitate the conversion of whole landscapes into oil palm. This has been achieved by obscuring indigenous forms of agriculture and land tenure, while creating reserves of available 'state' or 'idle' customary land, and counterpoising smallholder 'marginality' and 'backwardness' to the modernity of contemporary estate agriculture.
Change from swidden cultivation to other land uses may indeed be desirable for some farmers, but in other cases such factors as prohibitive legislation, land reform, logging, large-scale land ...development, exclusionary conservation zoning, and resettlement are driving change towards new land use systems with consequences that are still poorly understood. Finally, the role of swidden cultivation in carbon storage is still poorly understood, partly because the carbon cycle of the soil-vegetation system is not well researched.
The dominant view among policy-makers in Sarawak, a resource frontier state in Malaysian Borneo, is that the only viable way to involve smallholders in the oil palm boom that has transformed the ...agricultural economy of that island is to consolidate them into larger production entities with externally provided management and finance. However, despite lack of government support, the area of smallholder oil palm has increased dramatically in the past decade in those regions with access to roads and palm oil mills. We argue that, once processing infrastructure is in place, oil palm smallholders can readily take advantage of this infrastructure to pursue a profitable livelihood option, with lower cost and greater flexibility than large-scale operations. In this paper we explore the characteristics of oil palm smallholders in Sarawak and the complex and varied processes by which they have inserted themselves into the rapidly expanding landscape of large-scale plantation development. We develop a typology of oil palm smallholders and present a case study based on a questionnaire survey of 72 farm-households in five longhouse-communities in northern Sarawak. The analysis shows the economic viability of independent oil palm smallholders and identifies appropriate means of support that could raise incomes and spread benefits more widely.
This paper explores the major interactions between the transformation of swidden farming and the pursuit of rural livelihoods in the uplands of Southeast Asia. The paper draws on selected literature, ...workshop reflections, and six case studies to describe the causal processes and livelihood consequences of swidden change. Household-level livelihood responses have included both the intensification and 'dis-intensification' of swidden land-use, the insertion of cash crops, the redeployment of household labour, and the taking on of broader (often non-rural) livelihood aspirations and strategies. At the community level there have been emerging institutional arrangements for management of land and forests, and varying degrees of participation in or resistance to government schemes and programs. Swidden change has led to the loss and also the reassertion, realignment, and redefinition of cultures and identities, with important implications for access to resources. The impacts of these changes have been varied. Cash crops have often improved livelihoods but complete specialisation for the market increases vulnerability. Thus swidden can still provide an important safety net in the face of market fluctuations. Improved access to markets and social provision of education and health care have mostly improved the welfare of previously isolated groups. However, growing differences within and between communities in the course of swidden transformations can leave some groups marginalized and worse off. These processes of differentiation can be accentuated by heavy-handed state interventions based on swidden stereotypes. Nevertheless, communities have not passively accepted these pressures and have mobilized to protect their livelihood assets and strategies. Thus swidden farmers are not resisting appropriate and supportive forms of development. They are adopting new practices and engaging with markets, but in many situations swidden is still important to their livelihood strategies, providing resilience in the face of turbulent change. Active involvement of local people is essential in planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating development and conservation programs in swidden lands. Positive market incentives and supportive government policies are better than standardised, top-down directives.
The expansion of oil palm cultivation in the Asia–Pacific region in the past half century has engendered a major agro‐environmental transformation with significant implications for rural livelihoods. ...The transformation has taken different forms within and between countries, depending on local contexts, as well as involving an important transnational dimension in terms of regional flows of labour and capital, transboundary and global environmental impacts, and efforts to build international governance structures. This special issue is devoted to seven comparative case studies from across the region to highlight the complexity and diversity of the processes underway. In this introductory paper, we provide an overview of the major economic, social and environmental issues, the different modes of production that have been employed and the varying ways in which land, labour and capital have been mobilised in the region. This overview contextualises the specific studies that follow and emphasises the insights that arise from comparative analysis.
The formation of social capital is hypothesised to enhance collective efforts for soil conservation. The Landcare Program in the southern Philippines promotes simple conservation practices in upland ...environments by supporting community landcare groups and municipal landcare associations, thus augmenting social capital. A study was conducted in 2002–2003 to evaluate the Landcare Program, using a mix of quantitative and qualitative techniques. In the present paper, the relationship between social capital formation and adoption of soil conservation in the Municipality of Lantapan is investigated. It is concluded that the Landcare Program as a whole created a valuable stock of bridging social capital, rapidly accelerating the adoption of contour farming measures, but that on‐going support is needed to maintain this capital stock.
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