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.