Agriculture cash cropping

At present fungicides are used sparingly on the basic food crops in tropical America. Their wider use on these crops must develop along with the evolution from a small scale subsistence type of agriculture practiced by the majority of the population, to a cash-crop type of agriculture, where larger individual holdings on the better lands can support the rest of the population. 

Based on this demand, in 2006 FiBL launched a network of long-term farming system comparisons in the tropics (Kenya, India and a site in Latin America that has yet to be defined). The aim of this project is to examine the contribution of organic agriculture to food security, poverty alleviation and environmental conservation. It covers cash crop-oriented systems as well as subsistence crop-based systems under a wide range of agro-ecological and socio-economic conditions. 

The population concentrated in planned villages would, by degrees, grow cash crops (as specified by the agricultural experts) on communal fields with state-supplied machinery. Their housing, their local administration, their agricultural practices, and, most important, their workdays would be overseen by state authorities. 

Lebot, V. and Brunton, R. (1985) Tropical Plants as Cash Crops A Survey of Kava in Vanuatu, Vanuatu Department of Agriculture, Port Vila. 

Lamboll, R. (1989) Kava in Vanuatu The Advent of a Cash Crop, Internal Report, Vanuatu Government Department of Agriculture, Port Vila. 

This situation existed from colonial times when land legislations, monetization, and the imposition of taxation led to both the intensification and extensifica-tion of agricultural land use for additional cultivation of cash crops (Tanko, 2005). 

Forest based farmers practice slash-and-burn agriculture, clearing a new field from the forest, cropping it for 2-5 years and then leaving it fallow for 5-20 years. Fallow periods decrease due to growing population density. Forest products and game animals are the main source of cash income. Physical isolation and lack of roads and markets obstruct development. 

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