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Shifting Cultivation and Environmental Change
Author: Malcolm F. Cairns
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-01-09
Total Pages: 1405
ISBN-13: 1317750187
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Shifting cultivation is one of the oldest forms of subsistence agriculture and is still practised by millions of poor people in the tropics. Typically it involves clearing land (often forest) for the growing of crops for a few years, and then moving on to new sites, leaving the earlier ground fallow to regain its soil fertility. This book brings together the best of science and farmer experimentation, vividly illustrating the enormous diversity of shifting cultivation systems as well as the power of human ingenuity. Some critics have tended to disparage shifting cultivation (sometimes called 'swidden cultivation' or 'slash-and-burn agriculture') as unsustainable due to its supposed role in deforestation and land degradation. However, the book shows that such indigenous practices, as they have evolved over time, can be highly adaptive to land and ecology. In contrast, 'scientific' agricultural solutions imposed from outside can be far more damaging to the environment and local communities. The book focuses on successful agricultural strategies of upland farmers, particularly in south and south-east Asia, and presents over 50 contributions by scholars from around the world and from various disciplines, including agricultural economics, ecology and anthropology. It is a sequel to the much praised "Voices from the Forest: Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into Sustainable Upland Farming" (RFF Press, 2007), but all chapters are completely new and there is a greater emphasis on the contemporary challenges of climate change and biodiversity conservation.
Shifting Cultivation Policies
Author: Malcolm Cairns
Publisher: CABI
Published: 2017-11-13
Total Pages: 1115
ISBN-13: 1786391791
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Shifting cultivation supports around 200 million people in the Asia-Pacific region alone. It is often regarded as a primitive and inefficient form of agriculture that destroys forests, causes soil erosion and robs lowland areas of water. These misconceptions and their policy implications need to be challenged. Swidden farming could support carbon sequestration and conservation of land, biodiversity and cultural heritage. This comprehensive analysis of past and present policy highlights successes and failures and emphasizes the importance of getting it right for the future. This book is enhanced with supplementary resources. The addendum chapters can be found at: www.cabi.org/openresources/91797
Agrobiodiversity
Author: Karl S. Zimmerer
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2023-10-31
Total Pages: 403
ISBN-13: 0262549697
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Experts discuss the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and conservation, integrating disciplines that range from plant and biological sciences to economics and political science. Wide-ranging environmental phenomena—including climate change, extreme weather events, and soil and water availability—combine with such socioeconomic factors as food policies, dietary preferences, and market forces to affect agriculture and food production systems on local, national, and global scales. The increasing simplification of food systems, the continuing decline of plant species, and the ongoing spread of pests and disease threaten biodiversity in agriculture as well as the sustainability of food resources. Complicating the situation further, the multiple systems involved—cultural, economic, environmental, institutional, and technological—are driven by human decision making, which is inevitably informed by diverse knowledge systems. The interactions and linkages that emerge necessitate an integrated assessment if we are to make progress toward sustainable agriculture and food systems. This volume in the Strüngmann Forum Reports series offers insights into the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and sustainability and proposes an integrative framework to guide future research, scholarship, policy, and practice. The contributors offer perspectives from a range of disciplines, including plant and biological sciences, food systems and nutrition, ecology, economics, plant and animal breeding, anthropology, political science, geography, law, and sociology. Topics covered include evolutionary ecology, food and human health, the governance of agrobiodiversity, and the interactions between agrobiodiversity and climate and demographic change.
Food Crop Production by Smallholder Farmers in Southern Africa
Author: Ambayeba Muimba-Kankolongo
Publisher: Academic Press
Published: 2018-02-07
Total Pages: 382
ISBN-13: 0128143843
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Food Crop Production by Smallholder Farmers in Southern Africa: Challenges and Opportunities for Improvement evaluates traditional cultivation practices used by smallholder farmers, providing a synthesis of the latest information on increasing crop yield through adoption of research innovations. The book catalogs smallholder cultivation practices and recommends innovative strategies for improving the agriculture sector including: management practices that reduce net carbon emissions; technologies that improve soil structures and conserve the natural resources base; means of empowering female resources along value chains; and government commitment to adopt policies that enhance agriculture productivity by encouraging farmers to use environmentally sound cultivation technologies. Traditional farming techniques often produce negative impacts on the environment and ecosystem resulting in outbreaks of diseases and pests. In addition to the region’s recurrent droughts, these outbreaks of numerous diseases and pests, weeds and other invasive plants put thousands at risk of poverty and hunger, as well as malnutrition. This book presents enhanced agricultural production technologies for ensuring adequate food production, safety and nutritional quality for the population of Southern Africa and forms the basis for an increased SADC regional effort in food production through which financial and trade institutions can improve stakeholder capacities, encourage micro-enterprise development and enhance employment and regional trade. Provides a critical synthesis of data and information for increasing crop yield through adoption of research innovations Evaluates traditional and scientific interventions that address food security issues of the poor farmers in the region Presents agro-ecologies of countries in the region and how they relate to various cultivation practices Catalogs smallholder cultivation practices and recommends innovative strategies for improving the agriculture sector
Exploring Agrodiversity
Author: Harold Brookfield
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2001-05-07
Total Pages: 613
ISBN-13: 0231501129
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Small farmers are often viewed as engaging in wasteful practices that wreak ecological havoc. Exploring Agrodiversity sets the record straight: Small farmers are in fact ingenious and inventive and engage in a diverse range of land-management strategies, many of them resourcefully geared toward conserving resources, especially soil. They have shown considerable resilience in the face of major onslaughts against their way of life by outsiders and government. Using case studies from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific, this book provides in-depth analysis of agricultural diversity and explores its history. The book also considers the effect of the "gene revolution" on small farmers and reviews the effects of the "green revolution" in Asian countries. In conclusion, it questions whether the diverse agricultural practices employed by small farmers can survive modern pressures and the global ambitions of the biotechnology industry.
Second Growth
Author: Robin L. Chazdon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2014-05-23
Total Pages: 486
ISBN-13: 022611810X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →For decades, conservation and research initiatives in tropical forests have focused almost exclusively on old-growth forests because scientists believed that these “pristine” ecosystems housed superior levels of biodiversity. With Second Growth, Robin L. Chazdon reveals those assumptions to be largely false, bringing to the fore the previously overlooked counterpart to old-growth forest: second growth. Even as human activities result in extensive fragmentation and deforestation, tropical forests demonstrate a great capacity for natural and human-aided regeneration. Although these damaged landscapes can take centuries to regain the characteristics of old growth, Chazdon shows here that regenerating—or second-growth—forests are vital, dynamic reservoirs of biodiversity and environmental services. What is more, they always have been. With chapters on the roles these forests play in carbon and nutrient cycling, sustaining biodiversity, providing timber and non-timber products, and integrated agriculture, Second Growth not only offers a thorough and wide-ranging overview of successional and restoration pathways, but also underscores the need to conserve, and further study, regenerating tropical forests in an attempt to inspire a new age of local and global stewardship.
Shifting Cultivation and Environmental Change
Author: Malcolm F. Cairns
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-01-09
Total Pages: 1057
ISBN-13: 1317750195
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Shifting cultivation is one of the oldest forms of subsistence agriculture and is still practised by millions of poor people in the tropics. Typically it involves clearing land (often forest) for the growing of crops for a few years, and then moving on to new sites, leaving the earlier ground fallow to regain its soil fertility. This book brings together the best of science and farmer experimentation, vividly illustrating the enormous diversity of shifting cultivation systems as well as the power of human ingenuity. Some critics have tended to disparage shifting cultivation (sometimes called 'swidden cultivation' or 'slash-and-burn agriculture') as unsustainable due to its supposed role in deforestation and land degradation. However, the book shows that such indigenous practices, as they have evolved over time, can be highly adaptive to land and ecology. In contrast, 'scientific' agricultural solutions imposed from outside can be far more damaging to the environment and local communities. The book focuses on successful agricultural strategies of upland farmers, particularly in south and south-east Asia, and presents over 50 contributions by scholars from around the world and from various disciplines, including agricultural economics, ecology and anthropology. It is a sequel to the much praised "Voices from the Forest: Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into Sustainable Upland Farming" (RFF Press, 2007), but all chapters are completely new and there is a greater emphasis on the contemporary challenges of climate change and biodiversity conservation.
Economic and Ecological Implications of Shifting Cultivation in Mizoram, India
Author: Vishwambhar Prasad Sati
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: 2019-12-11
Total Pages: 149
ISBN-13: 3030366022
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book presents the first empirically tested, comprehensive study on shifting cultivation in Mizoram. Shifting cultivation is a unique and centuries-old practice carried out by the people of Mizoram in Northeast India. Today, it is a non-economic activity as it does not produce sufficient crops, and as a result, the area under shifting cultivation is decreasing. Such cultivation leads to the burning and degradation of vast areas of forestland and therefore has adverse impacts on the floral and faunal resources. This book is a valuable resource for government workers, policymakers, academics, farmers and those who are directly or indirectly associated with practical farming, or with framing and implementing policies. It is equally important to master’s and Ph.D. students of geography, resource management, development, and environmental studies who are involved in research and development.
Sustainable Agriculture and the Environment in the Humid Tropics
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 1993-02-01
Total Pages: 721
ISBN-13: 0309047498
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Rainforests are rapidly being cleared in the humid tropics to keep pace with food demands, economic needs, and population growth. Without proper management, these forests and other natural resources will be seriously depleted within the next 50 years. Sustainable Agriculture and the Environment in the Humid Tropics provides critically needed direction for developing strategies that both mitigate land degradation, deforestation, and biological resource losses and help the economic status of tropical countries through promotion of sustainable agricultural practices. The book includes: A practical discussion of 12 major land use options for boosting food production and enhancing local economies while protecting the natural resource base. Recommendations for developing technologies needed for sustainable agriculture. A strategy for changing policies that discourage conserving and managing natural resources and biodiversity. Detailed reports on agriculture and deforestation in seven tropical countries.
