Springer 2006
Agroforestry Systems (2006) 66:65–76
DOI 10.1007/s10457-005-6645-1
-1
Introducing cash crops in shifting cultivation regions – the experience with
cardamom in Laos
Olivier Ducourtieux1,*, Phoui Visonnavong2 and Julien Rossard3
1
Paris-Grignon National Institute of Agronomics (INA P-G), France; 2Lao Ministry of Agriculture &
Forestry, National Director of rural Development Project of Phongsaly District (PDDP), Lao PDR;
3
Committee for Co-operation with Laos (CCL), Technical assistant to PDDP, Lao PDR; *Author for
correspondence: Address: La Ferrie`re Haute, 24600 Ribe´rac, France (e-mail: olivier.ducourtieux@
laposte.net; phone: +33-5-5390-5174)
Received 27 April 2004; accepted in revised from 26 April 2005
Key words: Amomum villosum, Domestication, Marketing, Non-timber forest product (NTFP), Slash-andburn agriculture, Understorey
Abstract
Farmers are often blamed for destroying the tropical forest, especially in Laos. Converting shifting cultivation into cash crop based agriculture is frequently presented as the solution for merging forest protection
and poverty alleviation, but many attempts have ended in failure. A rural development project has attempted to introduce medicinal cardamom (Amomum villosum) cultivation in the notably remote region of
Phongsaly (northern Laos), for export to China. With nearly 300 ha planted, the crop now involves about
75% of the farmers in the region. Farmers fitted cardamom into their farming system, to suit their needs for
sustainability with a crop compatible with existing practices. Results indicate that introducing a cash crop
into a shifting cultivation region is possible if a greater attention is paid to: (i) appraise how the new crop
fits into the farming systems; (ii) prioritise economic issues over agronomic matters, in particular identify
markets, traders or commercial risks.
Introduction: Are cash crops an alternative
to slash-and-burn agriculture?
Shifting cultivation was often, and still is presented
as outdated and destructive by development
institutions (Brady 1996; Thrupp et al. 1997;
O’Brien 2002) and the Government of Lao People’s Democratic Republic (MAF 1999). Shifting
cultivation plays a major role in the Lao economy,
as 80% of the country is hilly or mountainous.
Agriculture provides jobs to over 250,000 families
(MAF 1999) – i.e. a third of the country’s population – which are among the poorest in the
country and essentially belonging to ethnic
minorities from the isolated uplands in the North,
East and Southeast of the country.
In the uplands of Lao PDR, farmers clear away
forest, creating a link between the two successive
phases of shifting cultivation:
• A short crop period (of 1–3 years), using the
fertility built up in the forest biomass;
• A fallow period, varying in length (of 1 up to
20 years), during which fertility builds up
through regeneration of the forest.
Slash-and-burn agriculture is often effective for
the farmer economy in terms of security and pro-
66
ductivity (Dufumier 1996; Fujisaka et al. 1996;
Ducourtieux 2005). Implemented for centuries,
they have had a limited impact on the forest
environment. They are nonetheless not sustainable
if demographic growth leads to accelerating crop
rotations (Brady 1996; Thrupp et al. 1997). When
the fallow period goes below 3–4 years, soil fertility is not renewed, and erosion and weed competition increase dramatically (Ramakrishnan
1992; Van Keer 2003).
In these regions, the government of Lao PDR
aims to alleviate poverty and protect natural resources. To reach these two potentially contradictory objectives, two ways are generally
proposed in rural development programmes:
restraining agriculture in mountain regions to
permanent, limited areas, and promoting incomegenerating activities. This policy is based on the
assumption that it is possible for farmers to sell
commercial products and that cash income allows
them to buy rice instead of growing it.
Cash crops as an alternative to swidden cultivation are systematically included into development projects instigated by the Lao government
(MAF 1999; CPC 2004) and international organisations (ADB 2003). Among the various recent
attempts, many have failed and success has rarely
been sustainable. There are two issues in the conjecture: (i) Is it possible to introduce cash crops
with success in shifting cultivation area? (ii) If yes,
is it possible for cash crops to replace slash-andburn agriculture? This article does not claim to
provide a final response, but seeks to contribute
towards the debate by reviewing a local experience
addressing the first issue. We did not look for
replacing shifting cultivation, but for appraising
the conditions to fulfil to make shifting cultivators
adopting a new cash crop fitting into their farming
systems.
We will study how a rural development project
has taken into account the local conditions in the
region of Phongsaly (cf. Figure 1) to introduce a
new cash crop, medicinal cardamom (Amomum
villosum), a non-timber forest product growing wild
but can also be planted in the understorey in
mountain rain forest. The project team focused on
the farming techniques for this plant, poorly known
outside of China where it is used for traditional
pharmacopoeia. That issue is often the developers’
only concern. Nevertheless, dealing with it is far
from enough to succeed. The project devoted most
of its efforts to economic aspects (work productivity
and risk limitation) and commercial ones: market
accessibility, reduction of commercial risks, etc. The
example of cardamom will allow us to identify the
conditions necessary to successfully introduce a
cash crop in upland areas like Phongsaly.
Material and methods: How to introduce cardamom
farming in Phongsaly?
Background: an economy based on shifting
cultivation in a hilly region
The Phongsaly district lies in the northernmost
province of Lao PDR (cf. Figure 1), landlocked
between China and Vietnam. The hilly region is
essentially covered with mountain rain forest.
Human activities, mainly shifting cultivation, have
historically transformed the climax vegetation.
The existing formations are very diversified,
ranging from primary forests to fire-maintained
Imperata cylindrica savannah (Alexandre and
Eberhardt 1998; Laffort and Jouanneau 1998;
Baudran 2000).
The population mainly belongs to the SinoTibetan ethnolinguistic family, a minority ethnic
group in Lao PDR. The 20,000 farmers of the
district live in 82 rural villages, of which 80% do
not have access to a road open to vehicles. It takes
at least 3 days to reach some villages on foot.
The population lives from swidden cultivation.
Other agricultural production remains limited due
to the lack of irrigable land in the V-shaped valleys, difficult access to markets for cash products,
and the high incidence of animal diseases.
From studies to implementation: selecting and
introducing a cash crop that will fit into existing
farming systems
The rural Project for Development in the District
of Phongsaly (PDDP) involves the Lao Government and the French Development Agency
(AFD). The project firstly aims to increase the
income of all the district’s inhabitants. That economic development is a prerequisite to the second
aim: limiting shifting cultivation in the long term.
Before implementing any activities, the PDDP
began with an in-depth study phase of the agrarian
67
Figure 1. Map of Lao PDR and study location.
systems in the Phongsaly District (Alexandre and
Eberhardt 1998; Laffort and Jouanneau 1998;
Baudran 2000). We endeavoured to understand
how coherent the local farming systems are and to
determine which proposals according to the
farmers needs should be considered for action and
implementation. We paid attention to the current
farming systems, to the differences within the region (zoning) and within village communities
(class typology). We interviewed old farmers as
key witnesses to understand and model how those
farming systems have been historically built up
and differentiated from each other. Thus, we were
able to typify the rationality of each class of
farmers, according to their history, means and
socio-economic context.
Cardamom emerged in the studies as an
important component of the family’s economy. At
the time, it was the second plant product exported
in value by Phongsaly province, after opium.
68
Medicinal cardamom1 (Amomum villosum var.
xanthoides) is a non-ligneous perennial plant of the
Zingiberaceae. It is used in the traditional Chinese
pharmacopoeia for preparing medication against
stomachache. As such, it reaches a potential market of over 1.3 billions consumers, in addition to
the Chinese diaspora around the world. Although
only gathered in the forest in Laos,2 cardamom
has been grown for centuries around Guangdon in
China. It was introduced in the 1960s in the Prefecture of Xhishuangbanna (Yunnan Province),
bordering Phongsaly province, where it has become a major product enhancing local economic
development: 8000 ha, 80% of the Chinese production of cardamom in 1998 (Zaifu 1991). The
pharmaceutical industry demands amounts up to
2,000,000 kg year 1, but Chinese production covers only one half of their needs. The remaining
portion is being met by gathered wild cardamom
of lower value3 imported from Laos, Myanmar,
and Vietnam.4
Gathering wild cardamom in Phongsaly was
hindered by two factors that tended to limit the
price offered to farmers:
• Social conditions of gathering (free access) tended to start the harvest prematurely, to the detriment of ripeness and hence product quality
(Aubertin 2003);
• Wild cardamom is not as concentrated in essential oils as the cardamom grown in China, which
is preferred by the industry. That limits it to only
being a complementary product, the price of which
depends on how much of it is harvested in China.
Based on the project’s aims – increasing farmer
income while preserving the forest environment–
and conclusions of the feasibility study, the PDDP
planned to focus on introducing cardamom
1
Medicinal cardamom should not be confused with aromatic
cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum), used as a condiment in
India and the Middle East, as well as in cosmetics.
2
With the notable exception of the Bolovens Plateau in the
south, where it has been cultivated for decades and, on a
smaller scale, of the Boun Neua district in Phongsaly province.
3
In September 2004, farmers sold the cultivated cardamom at
3.1 US$ kg 1 (dried), compared to 1.4 US$ kg 1 for the wild
one.
4
From PDDP marketing surveys (Saint-Pierre Claude, pers.
comm., 1998 and 2003).
farming in the Phongsaly District. Firstly, the
project team had to validate the option.
The first unknown factor deals with the conditions of market access.
In January 1998, a mission went to Xhishuangbanna to meet with commercial operators and
appraise the market prospects for sugar cane, tea
and cardamom. Only cardamom appeared to offer
sustainable economic guarantees for the Phongsaly farmers. It seemed to insure a stable demand as
the local supply is restrained by limited Chinese
resources of tropical forests. Hence, it promises a
lucrative price level, despite the high costs of access
to this market4 for Phongsaly farmers. During that
mission, the team also sought to identify private
trading companies interested in marketing cardamom from Phongsaly.
As the market survey proved conclusive, the
PDDP went on to the second phase: to determine
whether it was technically possible to grow cardamom in the Phongsaly soil and climate conditions. The project contacted the Xhishuangbanna
Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) in Menglun.
It is most likely the only institution having ever
undertaken research on medicinal cardamom. In
March 1999, a XTBG team surveyed soils and
forests in Phongsaly. They concluded that it would
be possible to grow cardamom in the hills of the
Phongsaly District, under some conditions.5
Farmers should not plant cardamom in bamboo
forest, where the soil is too acid and where the
superficial root systems will compete. Farmers
must also avoid fallow land less than 5 years old,
which is generally covered with fast-growing ligneous heliophyte species Macarana denticulata,
Trema orientalis, Mallotus paniculatus. They generally die and fall down after a 5-year period and
could negatively affect any understorey cardamom. The long-lived species Antidesma acidum,
Astonica scholaris, Albizia chinensis replace the
heliophyte ones after about 5 years, and do provide suitable for covering cardamom plantations.
Even after appraising the natural and market
conditions, in order to limit the risks for farmers,
the project staff did not start promoting the crop
immediately. First, an experiment was launched by
25 volunteer families in five villages, as diversified
as possible in the district in terms of natural and
5
From the XTBG survey for PDDP (Zhou Shou-qin et al. pers.
comm., 1999).
69
socio-economic conditions (ethnicity, access to
market). The point was to use a limited sample to
test the aptitude of cardamom to resume growth
after transporting and transplanting seedlings in
the Phongsaly conditions. The crop system used by
the farmers to grow cardamom in Xhishuangbanna was selected6 based on the proximity and
similarity of the zones. With 6400 stalks supplied
by the project in July 1998, the families were
growing 7000 in late 1998 and 9600 in March 1999.
Hence, there was proof that it was possible to
introduce medicinal cardamom plants from China
to a distant farm in Phongsaly.
The preliminary market study, commercial
canvassing, agronomic research and farmer
experimentation were all conclusive. The PDDP
was ready to promote cardamom farming on a
large scale. The project staff considered different
modalities to supply farmers with seedlings bought
in Xhishuangbanna (0.04 $US each):
(a) Project grant;
(b) Cash sale, with a very high cost per hectare (400
US$) that was beyond the farmers means;7
(c) Credit sale, which only postpones the cost issue
for farmers;
(d) Cash sale at a subsidised price;
(e) Seedlings provided on credit, with repayment
in kind after several years.
Options (b) and (c), and to a lesser degree option (d), are not fair: the promoter was not taking
a risk in the new programme. Farmers preferred
option (a), but the project funder did not. Finally,
option (e) was chosen. It allows extending the
plantations after a few years by distributing the
reimbursed seedlings. Each farm family had the
opportunity of borrowing 1000 seedlings at most,
i.e. a plantation covering 0.1 ha.
6
The cropping system promoted in Phongsaly and presented in
the ‘results’ chapter is similar to the Xhishuangbanna’s one.
Growing cardamom for almost 40 years, the Xhishuangbanna
farmers extend the surfaces or regenerate the old plantation
with seedlings coming from thinned out stolons in younger
fields (a farmer-to-farmer market exists for seedlings). The
agronomy differs in some other Chinese provinces, such as
overstorey management (monospecies plantation of Pinus spp.
in Guangxi Zhuang) or intensive irrigated plantation in
Guangdong (Saint-Pierre Claude, pers. comm., 2003).
7
A farmer family earns in average 1500 $US per year, but only
200 $US in cash (Ducourtieux 2005).
Although gathering cardamom was a longstanding practice in the region, growing it was a
new one not yet mastered by the farmers. The
PDDP accompanied the plant delivery with infield training by the project team and study tours
to China. Each village selected a representative to
become the community’s cardamom adviser; in
2000, they participated in three study trips to
Xhishuangbanna aimed at:
• Farmer-to-farmer training on growing cardamom techniques;
• Meeting cardamom traders to appraise their
organisation and their requests in terms of quality;
• Showing the Phongsaly farmers to what extent
cardamom was essential in the economic start-up of
Xhishuangbanna and how it still plays a role now.
Results: farmers grow cardamom in the forests
of Phongsaly
Shifting cultivation completes collecting activities to
maximise the family income
Collecting activities (hunting, fishing and gathering) are an essential component of the family
economy in the region, contributing 41% of the
total household income (615 US$ year 1), whereas
crop income counts for 35% (530 US$ year 1),
animal raising for 18% (280 US$ year 1) and
handicraft for 6% (85 US$ year 1). Gathering in
the forest mainly concerns bamboo sprouts, ‘tipti’
creepers (Urticaceae, probably Boehmeria malabarica) and wild cardamom (Amomum spp.).
Slash-and-burn agriculture has often been considered as a simple and standard technique (Thapa
and Weber 1991; Bandy et al. 1993), even if it is a
myth (Thrupp et al. 1997). After interviewing
more than 1000 farmers around Phongsaly, we
found out that local shifting cultivation is more
complex than expected.
Every year, farmers plant nearly 3500 ha in the
Phongsaly district, corresponding to about
2000 ha cleared. Rice, the staple food, and associated crops are cultivated 2 years in a row; then
the fields are left for the forest to regrow. Photosynthesis enables the reconstitution of woody
formations during a long-fallow period lasting
from 6 to 18 years (Alexandre and Eberhardt
70
1998; Laffort and Jouanneau 1998; Baudran 2000;
Ducourtieux 2005). Those substantial periods
enable the reconstitution and accumulation of
biomass which is a source of fertility for the next
slash-and-burn crop cycle (Ramakrishnan 1992).
The limited labour available in this lightly populated region is the bottleneck of the local economy.
In local farming systems, a family devotes its
whole labour to farming and hunting-fishinggathering (Ducourtieux 2005). That workforce
cannot clear more than 0.8 ha per worker per year
(Laffort and Jouanneau 1998; Keonuchan 2000)
and any new activity involves dropping an existent
one.
With their production means – labour, limited
capital and hand tools – and the local socio-economic conditions, farmers seek to maximise labour
productivity: they aim to maximise the income per
active worker (US$ manday 1), and not the yield
(kg ha 1 or US$ ha 1). In parallel, farmers try to
limit the technical, climatic and commercial risks
to ensure a minimum income for their family
(Scott 1976).
Growing cardamom in the forest
Cardamom grows wild in the Southeast Asian
uplands, specifically in the mountain rain forests.
It requires a moist and shady environment. The
most favourable conditions5 include a mean yearly
temperature ranging from 19 to 22 C, with over
12 C in the coldest months, and yearly rainfall
between 1200 and 2400 mm.
From one to 2 m in height, a cardamom stem
produces new shoots very fast from runners. The
root system is shallow: 80% of the roots grow
within the first 10 cm of the soil and do not go
over 20 cm deep. The plant does well in aerated,
humus-rich and slightly acid soil: organic matter
>3%, pH from 5.5 to 7.0 with tolerance from 5.0
to 7.5. Sensitive to drought, the April–May blossoming deteriorates if soil moisture is less than
22%. Flowers develop on the stolons, near the
root plateau (cf. Figure 2). Pollination is done by
the insects Apiscerana indica, A. dorsati and Nomia
strigate (Zhou 1993).
The fruit ripens in August (cf. Figure 3), the
period in which it is picked, dried and marketed.
The farming technique aims at imitating the
growth of wild cardamom (Zhou 1993): the forest
plot is slightly cleared before planting to get from
10 to 60% of light transmitted, with an optimum
from 30 to 40%. After tilling the topsoil, the
seedlings are planted one plant m 2. Weeding is
done the first 2 years, then the plants have grown
enough to choke out weeds. When the optimal
density of 20 plants m 2 is reached, farmers begin
to thin out the spare stems. They can be transplanted on a new plot, enabling the extension of
the plantation at a low cost.
Figure 2. Cardamom blooming on the root plateau (northern Laos).
71
Figure 3. Cardamom fruit, drying (northern Laos).
Labour requirements for cardamom production
are limited. Thinning and harvesting require less
than 50 mandays ha 1 year 1. An additional 2–
5 mandays are required for drying depending on
climatic conditions.
The first fruit appears three years after planting,
but the main harvest begins after the fifth year. It
continues increasing until the 10th year, then the
plot wears out slowly over a 10-year period (cf.
Figure 4). Rational management entails replanting
around the 15th year to regenerate the plantation.
A one-hectare plot produces from 20 to 750 kg of
dried fruit depending on its age (cf. Figure 4), its
conditions (shade, moisture, fertility) and the year
(Zhou Shou-qing, pers. comm., 1999). Except for
the plantation’s age, the yield depends mainly on
the date when rain starts in April–May, which
determines the blossoming and pollination (Zhou
1993).
The crop can be integrated into the secondary
forest formations dominant in Phongsaly without
any ecological damage. Planted under forest canopy, it enables the conservation and development
of a wooded stratum, a guarantee for the subsistence of forest environmental conditions (ecological diversity, soil structure and fertility, moisture,
microclimate, etc.). Thus, cardamom cropping
establishes a new agroforestry system in Phongsaly.
kg dry cardamom ha-1
300
200
100
Years after plantation
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Figure 4. Model of yield evolution in a cardamom plantation (Northern Laos) (source: Zhou Shou-qing, pers. comm., 1999).
72
Interactions between the canopy and understorey
cardamom seem limited. The trees provide shade,
moisture and humus required for the crop. In return, cardamom does not seem to have any positive
or negative impact on the overstorey, but it strongly
competes with any other understorey species. While
cardamom requires annual cares, the overstorey is
also managed, at a lighter level: farmers cut some
trees or prune the canopy to maintain the shade
within the optimal range.
Phongsaly farmers will get more and more
experience in growing cardamom. We may guess
that they will manage the affected trees according
to their value (such as fruit production, firewood,
etc.) or the interaction with cardamom (shade,
moisture, fertility, etc.). The cardamom agroforestry in Phongsaly will probably evolve in a more
complex system. With the long enough rotation in
Phongsaly, farmers will probably try to grow
cardamom in the fallow of shifting cultivation, like
some other regional agroforestry systems: mulberry trees in Laos (Watanabe et al. 2004) or lacquer trees in Yunnan (Long et al. 2003) , etc. The
way to a multi-storey systems associating different
productive trees, like rubber agroforest in Kalimantan (Michon et al. 1986) or forest gardens in
Java (Wiersum 2004), is longer. There are many
different possibilities for the farmers to develop the
cardamom cultivation, we cannot come round the
question, but readers may refer to complementary
publications to go further in the diversity of
agroforestry systems (Nair et al. 2004; Schroth
et al. 2004).
Large-scale introduction of cardamom cropping
The PDDP signed a first contract with a Chinese
company for the supply of 1,150,000 cardamom
seedlings. Purchased from Xhishuangbanna villagers, the plants were delivered to 1000 families
from 27 villages in July 1999. The project delivered
the plants to distribution points accessible by truck
or pirogue. The villagers then transported the
seedlings on their backs or on horseback all the
way to the planting area.
Monitoring of the newly planted plots showed
high mortality of seedlings. In January 2000, only
27% were alive after 5 months from the date of
delivery. Since cardamom multiplied rapidly by
stolons (1–5 offshoots year 1), it was not irre-
versible, but it delayed the beginning of production by one or two years. We guessed four reasons
to explain why the mortality rate was higher in
1999 than for the trial plots in 1998:
• The time between collecting the plants in China
and replanting them in Phongsaly was too long.
Many plants arrived too dry and died before
producing offshoots.
• Deliveries were overloaded, with plants suffering
from transportation conditions. Furthermore,
big deliveries of 250,000 seedlings required too
much time for redistribution.
• The seedlings were too old and leafless, which
prevented regrowth.
• Planting was done too late (mid-to-end July),
which only left 2 months in the rainy season for
the regrowth of the seedlings. That also complicated and delayed logistics, with flooding
rivers and unfit roads.
Based on these observations, the project modified the delivery logistics for the year 2000. Distribution was moved up to June and carried out in
many sessions: 13 deliveries of 77,000 plants each
in 2000 instead of five deliveries of 230,000 plants
in 1999. The project asked for younger and leafy
seedlings. Trucks were less loaded. 970 families
from 35 villages received 1,000,000 plants in 2000.
In those conditions, plant regrowth went more
smoothly in 2000 than in 1999. By mid-2001, the
plots still had 63% of the plants delivered, i.e. a
rate 2.5 times higher in the previous year. The
PDDP resumed the procedure in June 2001 to
cover the last villages in the district: 830 families
from 30 villages received 880,000 seedlings.
By late 2001, 4900 families (72% of the families
in the Phongsaly district) had volunteered for
growing medicinal cardamom in 82 villages, and
planted 220 ha. The project invested over 150,000
US$ for the purchase of the plants.
Promising results to be consolidated
In August 2001, the first cardamom fruits were
harvested on trial plots planted in 1998. With an
average yield of 64 kg ha 1 (dried), the results
were encouraging but varied substantially from
one family and one village to the next: from 0 to
380 kg ha 1.
73
At the end of 2003, the area in cardamom
reached 270 ha in the Phongsaly District. Farmers
used thinned out shoots to extend their fields. The
production, still in the increasing phase (cf. Figure 4), reached 1100 kg dried in 2002 and 6000 kg
in 2003, with a value of 1900 US$ and 14,400 US$,
respectively. Four to five years from now, the
yearly income from the 220 ha planted could reach
150,000 US$.
Despite these promising results, the operation
has encountered some problems that, although not
crippling, require the project team’s attention for
maximising the farmers’ profit:
• Prices have drastically dropped since 2000, from 5
to 7 US$ kg 1 dried in China in 1995–1998, to
less than 2 US$ kg 1 in 2002. That drop is
probably attributed to the closing of the main
Chinese State pharmaceutical company.4 Prices
rose again in 2003 and 2004 (2.4 and 3.1 US$
kg 1, respectively to) due to the progressive reorganisation of the sector in China. They will
nevertheless continue to fluctuate, depending on
production levels in the Chinese provinces.
• The marketing conditions have not established a
balance of power favourable to farmers. Higher
freight costs explained the lower prices in
Phongsaly compared to those in Xhishuangbanna ( 20% in 2004).
• Cardamom is marketed in late August-early
September, at a time when rice stocks are at their
lowest in the villages. Farmers are in a hurry to
buy rice and quickly sell their produce to the first
coming trader.
• Drying the fruits on mats in the sun is problematic in the middle of the rainy season. The
product is marketed damp, resulting in a loss of
quality, risks of deterioration, and a lower price
paid to the farmers.
• Harvest of cultivated cardamom is increasing
but it is still low compared to the gathered one.
Farmers do not consider that it is profitable to
loose time in sorting the few kilograms of cultivated cardamom while processing the produce.
It is often exported in mixed batches, based on
the price of the gathered cardamom.
The project is currently working with villagers on
three topics aimed at addressing these constraints:
• Commercial promotion of Phongsaly cardamom
to make the market aware of its quality.
• Grouping farmers to increase their power in
trade negotiations.
• Introduction of drying ovens to help improving
product quality, reducing the work and strengthen
the farmers’ trading power by facilitating temporary storage.
Discussion: cash crops may be an alternative to
slash-and-burn agriculture, but on drastic conditions
An alternative to slash-and-burn agriculture
is not required in Phongsaly
In times of crisis, i.e. when the demographic growth
makes it unsustainable, it becomes urgent to replace slash-and-burn agriculture. However, the
population of Phongsaly has decreased since the
end of the 1960s. Historical surveys show that 20%
of the villages vanished and a third of the families
left the region since 1966. Nowadays, the population density has decreased to eight inhabitants
km 2, far from the demographic crisis threshold.
Between 1995 and 2003, the growth rate was negative in rural villages of Phongsaly:
0.3%
year 1, i.e. 2.7% during the period. According to
the political will to eradicate slash-and-burn agriculture and the attraction of the city livelihood, the
trend of emigration will persist in Phongsaly.
As shifting cultivation is definitely not an issue in
Phongsaly, why were so many farmers interested in
cropping cardamom and voluntarily agreed to the
PDDP proposals? Because of the crop’s productivity, it appears to be a credible complement to a
farmer’s income. The return to labour for cardamom farming ranges from 2 to 4 US$ day 1, compared to 1.4 US$ day 1 for shifting cultivation
(Ducourtieux 2005); a 0.1 to 0.3 ha cardamom
plantation requires less than 15 mandays during the
rainy season. Cardamom production, therefore, is
compatible with shifting cultivation, with a small
but manageable competition for available labour.
Cash crops cannot easily replace shifting cultivation
Cash crops are not automatically a viable alternative to shifting cultivation. In some cases, mistaken options can lead to counter-productive
results. For example, introducing sugar cane
74
instead of shifting cultivation in Phongsaly reduced the farmers’ income, while degrading the
soil through mineral exploitation of the fertility.
For a yield of 20,000 kg ha 1, a sugar cane field
exports over 200 kg ha 1 year 1 of minerals from
the soil, compared to 15–20 kg ha 1 year 1 for a
slash-and-burn field. At the end of the crop cycle,
the slash-and-burn field lost 40 kg of minerals; the
secondary forest is rapidly regenerated during the
fallow period. For the sugar cane field, the mineral
losses reach 600 kg ha 1 and Imperata cylindrica
smothers the woody species.
The farmers are enduring those errors caused by
development programmes. They occurred due to a
lack of study and comprehension of the local
agricultural conditions. Usually, agronomic matters are carefully studied, but the socio-economic
context (e.g. risk levels and prospects, access to
market, price conditions, farmers’ priorities and
means) is too often neglected. Those oversights
lead to unsuitable proposals, logically refused by
the farmers. It wastes limited public resources and
leads to tensions between villagers and administrative services.
Introducing a new cash crop is not obvious; it
can only succeed if the farmers accept it and make
it their own. Based on the cardamom experience in
Phongsaly, three conditions can be identified as
requirements for success:
1. Cash crops proposed must be more productive
than shifting cultivation, considering the main
limiting factor of agriculture in the zone: labour. The new proposal must bring in more per
workday to the farmers than the current family
income in order for the farmers to accept the
activity conversion.
2. Cash crops proposed must offer more security
than shifting cultivation. The farmers cannot accept to drop their staple crop (rice) for risky crop
proposals, whose results are not constant, with
good and bad years. The risks to be minimised
include the markets and economic vicissitudes
(price variation, evolution of demand, etc.), as well
as natural conditions (climate, soil, pests and disease, etc.).
3. Staple foods must be accessible. In some cases,
the solution may lie in the village, if the production
level is different from one class of farmers to
another. Cash income from sold produce can
boost exchange within the community. If the
local supply cannot cover the demand for staple
food, it has to be bought with new cash income
and imported into the village. That requires big
investments in communication networks (roads)
when promoting alternative cash crops.8
4. Cash crops proposed must be easily transportable. In upland regions like Phongsaly, villages
doing swidden cultivation are especially remote.
Reaching roads open to vehicles and, from there,
to markets requires hours or days of walking on
steep paths. Cash crops must be sturdy and nonperishable in order to withstand those transportation conditions. The value per unit (price kg 1
and price m 3) must, therefore, be high to enable
economically profitable transportation.
If one of these conditions is not met, the failure
of the cash crop proposed is predictable.
Substituting cash crops based systems for slashand-burn agriculture implies more than agronomic
research and extension. The Phongsaly’s experience with cardamom has not reached that objective, but it shows that it requires combined actions
in infrastructure, marketing, agronomy and organisation of farmers. In Northern Thailand, cash
crops (fruits, flowers, etc.) progressively are
replacing shifting cultivation. The experience
shows that the political will must endure because
the investments are costly and lasting (van Keer
2003).
Conclusion
Cash crops are often presented as an alternative to
slash-and-burn agriculture, assuming that this
practice is in crisis or doomed to fail in the short
term. These conditions lead into a poverty upsurge
affecting many farmers and the damaging of natural resources (deforestation, watershed degradation, etc.). The assumption linking shifting
cultivation to environmental degradations rests on
the premise that slash-and-burn agriculture is not
sustainable: demographic growth led or will lead
8
Together with the cardamom promotion, the PDDP collaborates with the village communities to fund and build a network
of improved tracks suitable for affordable and locally available
means of transportation: packhorses, bicycles, motorcycles or
two-wheeled tractors. It consists in 140 km of two-metre wide
earth roads and cable bridges over rivers.
75
the system to crisis. It is a known fact in many
regions in the world, but in some others the
demography is declining. There, slash-and-burn
agriculture may sustainably last, like in the
Phongsaly hills.
Introducing cash crops is not a miraculous
solution for stabilising shifting cultivation. Their
promotion requires prior in-depth thought about
the socio-economic conditions and suitable research in the on-farm environment. A single crop
cannot be a sustainable solution, in particular in
terms of economic risks for the farmers. A crop
must be planned in association with breeding
activities and other crops within the existing production systems. Well-designed and implemented,
the promotion of cash crops can contribute to
increasing farmers’ income while preserving the
forest. Substantial public investments have to
support the agronomic extension, in order to open
up the villages and generate smooth commercial
exchanges: access to markets for cash crops, secure
and low-cost import of staple food.
Trends and mirages are common in the development sector and often only lead to costly and
dangerous failures for the farmers, the first victims
of erring ways. Administrations and projects are
much more effective when they take into account
the socio-economic agricultural environment and
its local historical evolution. By listening and better
understanding farmers, it is possible to develop
new technical and economical practices that will
make it possible to reach the Millennium goals of
poverty alleviation and environmental protection.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thanks the Committee for Cooperation with Laos (CCL) for having backed up
the field work. Many thanks to the reviewers, who
patiently and repetitively commented our paper to
improve and make it publishable.
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