Agriculture development strategy needs changes (1)

Agriculture development strategy needs changes (1)

This is the first of two articles on upland farming.

By Rusdian Lubis

JAKARTA (JP): Nomadic and dry-land farmers have been blamed
for the recent forest fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra. The
farmers were responsible for 85 percent of the 5.1 million acres
of forests destroyed by fires, Kompas reported Oct. 22.

Debates over the data and culprits aside, it is high time
to look at these two groups of farmers. So far, the upland areas
and their systems of agriculture seem to have been left untouched
by government policies.

Dry-land farming is found in marginal lands with steep slopes,
or in lots which used to be forests. In some regions, this kind
of farming activity spreads to river catchments, causing critical
conditions to these areas. The results are predictable: During
the dry season, we have acute problems of drought and forest
fires. In the rainy season, we have floods and severe erosion.

Key characteristics of upland agriculture include diversity of
the ecosystem and agronomy, from the intercrop horticulture
system to relatively more complex systems such as agroforestry
which mix food plant forestry and farming. At present, due to
shortages of funding and lack of technology, the upland
agricultural system generally produces very low yields. It is
still done the traditional way, which is suitable to those who
live at the subsistent level. Nevertheless, the diversity of the
ecosystem, theoretically, has the potential to be developed into
a robust and sustainable agricultural system.

During a discussion on the problems of the upland agricultural
system, Professor Hayami, an expert in agriculture-economics,
suggested a number of modifications to existing development
strategies for upland agriculture and forestry.

First of all, we must modify our agricultural policy which has
been based on the package of "input-technology-credit-extension"
aimed at the farmers. The program is more suitable for lowland
rice growing farmers, which is relatively more homogeneous both
ecologically and socio-economically. To complement the new
policy, we need to develop an agricultural policy that is more
problem-specific and more adapted to the ecological and socio-
economical diversity of upland farmers.

One alternative for implementing this strategy is by building
a tripartite cooperation between farmers, researchers and
educators in various locations, which will develop prototypes of
upland agricultural technology. We must also relieve the educa
tors from administrative chores as well as from the duty of
channeling the input into agriculture, so that they can concen
trate on serving the needs of the farmers.

Second, we must stimulate the market mechanism and the private
sector to handle the disbursement of credits, distribution of
input and marketing of agricultural products. Certainly we cannot
rely on both of them for particular activities, such as trading
and planting seedlings, since these activities require strict
quality assurance. Privatization of supply of input and
distribution of agricultural input is expected to reduce the
burden of administrative costs that have to be carried out by the
government.

Third, we must increase the role played by the government in
building and improving infrastructure, such as roads, bridges and
market information. In order to improve efficiency, we must get
rid of regulations that allow for oligopoly or market concentra
tion.

Specifically in the area of infrastructure, we can reallocate
the funds that are meant for building irrigation system, to rice-
field farmers--whose rice fields have lately been converted into
residential plots--as well as lowland farmers, and use them
instead for building infrastructures for upland farmers.

Roads and bridges play an extremely important role in
supplying input into, and marketing the products from, isolated
areas. This way, economically and ecologically there will be
positive impacts that will trickle down from the upland to
lowland areas, since the problem of sedimentation and the silting
up of the irrigation systems can be overcome.

What might be the constraints for this development strategy?
The first may come from population growth and competition in the
use of the land by non-agricultural sectors, such as farming,
forests, industry and residential areas. This competition has
made it difficult to fix the damages caused by dry-land
agriculture and nomadic farmers.

This, in turn, has made a farming method that has been applied
for hundreds of years without any significant impact on the
environment, now having such a disastrous consequence. As the
result of increasingly short rotation and fallow periods, we have
seen that soil fertility has declined. Other resulting problems
include erosion, sedimentation in the headwater areas and forest
fires.

The shortage of land has forced nomadic farmers to cut down
trees in the forests. However, their area of activities is also
increasingly limited by the expansion of the forest areas owned
by the state. A World Bank report in 1990 shows permanent forest
areas were estimated to be 26 million acres in 1967, but it was
estimated to be 113 million acres in 1983.

According to existing regulations, only forest concessionaires
have the right to reap the yields from the land they lease from
the Ministry of Forestry. Local people are not entitled to the
crops in these forests. Needless to say, nomadic farmers, who
lack capital or collateral, cannot afford to lease or buy land.
Worse, since those farmers are not allowed to pick the crops of
non-timber in secondary forests owned by the state or
concessionaires, they are not interested in preserving the forest
areas.

The second constraint may come from the tradition of common
property, hak ulayat (land laws) or hak adat (general laws). In
many areas, nomadic farmers cultivate the land in a rotating
pattern, rotating both the location and the farmers (for example,
those found in the Enrekang area of South Sulawesi). Communal
property right tends to destroy natural resources since there is
no sense of ownership. Hardin, an expert in ecology, calls this
the "Tragedy of Commons". A general solution that may avoid the
tragedy would be to clarify property rights by both the state and
the private sectors. However, the two solutions, as mentioned
before, give limits to the local people's participation in
benefiting from the land.