Swidden-fallow agroforestry for sustainable land use (in Thai language)

Swiddens are often used to grow staple food for local consumption and rarely produce surpluses for sale. Cultivating fallow land is a community strategy that complements other subsistence-farming practices. It plays a determining role in the farm economy not only through a regular cash flow from traded commodities but also as a risk buffer in times of stress through food and dietary diversity (Michon 2005, van Noordwijk et al 2008). Agroforests are often part of swidden systems. Fallow land is planted with a variety of useful trees that are frequently integrated with forest ecosystems. In Indonesia, communities plant fruit, rubber, coffee, cocoa and rattan that create diverse agroforests on managed swidden fallow. While resembling forests, these agroforests are fully integrated with local farming systems. In the Philippines, smallholding plantations that allow substantial spontaneous regeneration are in decline but naturally-regenerated, swidden-fallow secondary forests help check build-up of pests, diseases and weeds, serve as grazing and browsing land, as shelter belts and as sources of fuel wood, food and medicinal plants (Lasco et al 2001). In Viet Nam, agroforestry has been a feature of agricultural and forested landscapes since before the modern era but scientific research only began in the early 1970s, which led to adaptation of some of the customary systems, particularly, agroforestry swiddens and introduction of new systems, such as alley cropping, boundary planting and 'taungya'1 (Snelder and Lasco 2008).

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