Increasing the scope for food crop production on sloping lands in Asia: contour farming with natural vegetative strips in the Philippines

Alternative, agroecological or low-input agricultural production systems emphasize reliance on the resources present within the farm (Altieri, 1995; Pretty, 1995). Conversely, ‘conventional’ approaches to agricultural development are characterized as depending more heavily on external inputs. Our task in this collaborative effort has been to assess the extent to which so-called alternative agriculture can contribute to increased world food production in the future. This issue is significant for those making decisions on how to invest in agricultural research, and for those involved in assisting farmers to apply that research on the land. There is reason to feel some discomfort with classifying agricultural practices into ‘alternative’ or ‘conventional’. It can be more of an ideological divide than a logical one. The dichotomy is not particularly useful either scientifically or practically since most real-world systems defy such classification. A number of the cases in Part 2 have discussed practices or combinations of practices that might be identified as being either alternative or conventional depending upon one’s point of view, or that have changed over time. The traditional rainfed systems analysed in Chapter 7 originally used local resources available to the household but now incorporate some external inputs to maintain soil fertility as population has grown, chemical fertilizer has become available and cash incomes have increased. On the other hand, some high-input conventional systems such as the irrigated rice systems considered in Chapter 16 are evolving towards alternative approaches through less pesticide use.

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