Land-Use Strategies of Farmers in Responding to Rising Land-Use Pressures in the Southeastern Forest Region of Madagascar: A Comparative Study between Lowland Households and Hillside Households

JARQ : Japan Agricultural Research Quarterly
ISSN 00213551
書誌レコードID(総合目録DB) AA0068709X
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46-03-07.pdf677.97 KB

An alternative production system to slash-and-burn cultivation is urgently required to satisfy both increasing subsistence needs and environmental conservation objectives in the rainforest region of Madagascar. This paper investigates the current land-use management practices of smallholder farmers that have faced tight land-use pressures due to rapid population growth and stricter forest protection laws. Spatio-temporal patterns of land use were analyzed for lowland and hillside households by using data obtained from a ground survey of 316 fields. Both household groups retained longer fallowing periods for upland rice cultivation (lasting 5.4 to 6.8 years) than those previously reported (of 3 to 5 years). Recent dynamic changes in the agricultural systems included bottomland saturation with irrigated paddies and a rapid transition of coffee-growing areas into slash-and-burn and terraced paddy areas, in order to meet subsistence needs. A shift in dependence from slash-and-burn cultivation to lowland paddies was particularly significant among lowland households due to the expansion of terraced paddies and adoption of a double-cropping system in the irrigated lowlands. The hillside households intensified cassava cultivation in short-term fallowing periods, as also reflected by their high dependence on cassava for caloric consumption. The difference in countermeasures adopted by both household groups to deal with land-use pressures was partly due to the accessibility to extension services. The results suggest that such intervention to promote intensification in lowland paddies was apparently an effective approach to reduce dependence on slash-and-burn cultivation. Given the limited land areas in which to further expand paddy fields, higher crop productivity is needed in the future to achieve a smooth transition to an agricultural system not dependent on slash-and-burn practices.

刊行年月日
作成者 TSUJIMOTO Yasuhiro HOMMA Koki MATSUYAMA Haruki SHIRAIWA Tatsuhiko
著者キーワード

forest conservation

irrigated lowland

slash-and-burn

tree-based cash cropping

公開者 Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences
オンライン掲載日
国立情報学研究所メタデータ主題語彙集(資源タイプ) Journal Article
46
3
開始ページ 249
終了ページ 256
DOI 10.6090/jarq.46.249
権利 Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences
言語 eng

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