MULTI-LAYERED CROPPING SYSTEMS- “SCIENCE FICTION”

(Excerpted from an anthology of memoirs by LC Arulpragasam)

In the absence of meaningful agrarian reform, the area (lateral) expansion of small farms is not feasible. The only possibility left is to seek increased returns through improved ‘land-augmenting’ technologies. Since we cannot expand horizontally, what is needed is to look into the possibility of vertical expansion: that is not by competing for extra land but by competing for the air and sunshine above it. This raises the possibility of multi-layered cropping, which would be feasible in the wet areas of many Asian countries.

I was also able to see the highly intensive cropping on micro holdings in the wet zones of Sri Lanka and Java (Indonesia) where all sorts of crops including field crops, bush crops and tree crops were crowded into less than a one fourth acre holding. Although I am not an agronomist, these examples gave me the idea to write up a programme in 1971 (after a mission to Indonesia) for multi-layered cropping of such upland small holdings. I identified eight possible levels of crops/products that could be grown on the same small piece of land, without displacing other crops.

First, there could be something below ground level, such as yams (cassava, potatoes, etc) or even fish in fish ponds. Second there could be something at ground level, such as food and cash crops (upland rice, maize, chillies, etc). Just above this, going vertical (but not competing for sunlight) there could be bush crops such as coffee, tea or cacao. Between these, ‘mezzanine level’ there could be a shed on stilts for small livestock (chicken, rabbits or goats). At this level, a vine crop too could also be grown.

For example, a pepper vine would grow vertically, wrapping itself around a pole (not competing for land space) while a gourd, pumpkin or passion fruit vine could be grown on top of the livestock shed. At the next level, a small tree crop could be grown, such as banana and papaya. Above this there would be room for tall trees, such as coconut. Above the coconut, there could be bees flying to bring honey from others’ lands – to bring it home to the small farm! Today in the UAE in more desert climate conditions, more highly capitalized solutions of vertical cropping systems are being tried out; but in 1971 this must have been revolutionary.

This vertical approach had to be structured in such a way that each crop-layer would not compete for air and sunshine with the other crops/levels. This “ladder approach” could obviously be improved by agronomists with a view to identifying the most valuable crops/products that could be grown at each level. According to my calculations, the micro- farmers could have grown their incomes by 12 times – if they had adopted the cropping system that I had proposed. Although I cleared this concept with a leading agronomist when I returned to FAO Headquarters, this whole section of my report was deleted by an FAO bureaucrat on the grounds that “this is science fiction!”

Needless to say, I was sure that I was on the right track – and this proved to be correct. For when I went back to Indonesia some 10 years later, I found that some micro farmers had already begun adopting many of my proposed “layers” into their farming systems. This was obviously not based on my thinking or advice, but forced on them by their own restrictive circumstances. The point is that thinking in structural terms, I was able to conceptualize and articulate this approach before agronomists did. It is also interesting to note that by this time (in the late 1980s) articles began to appear regarding the possibility and merits of such multi-layered cropping systems: it was not ‘science fiction’ any more.

The point is that most of the agronomists in FAO had been trained in countries where land and capital were abundantly available and only the factor of labour was scarce. So they often said that ‘small farms were uneconomic’ – and refused to deal with it. This despite this sector was holding about 70 percent of the farmers of the developing world. They, however, were against any meaningful agrarian reform since this would disturb the only modernized sector which was working well.

This although they knew that agrarian reform was the main means of increasing the size of smaller holdings. The problem is that these agronomists are trained in countries which have the opposite factor proportions to that the smallholder is faced with. And the higher the academic qualification of the agronomist, the more the holder is removed from the real world of the smallholder of the developing countries. This was the problem that many agronomists of the UN agencies were facing in the 1980s – although at that time they did not recognize it.