PROBLEMS OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN AGRICULTURE

by Prof. Dr. Jiro Sugi

Life has a very long history on earth. Archaeologists estimate that the first life was born 3.3 billion years ago. One billion years thereafter, plants made their appearance in the world. They had nitrogen fixation or photosynthetic capacity.

As a result, the large quantity of oxygen discharged by plants changed the composition of the air. Many metals contained in sea water were oxidized and began to be precipitated, causing a great change in the composition of sea water too. With earh’s crustal movement era, animals came into existence and continued evolution. The atmospheric, water and land sphere were established on earth, on which the world as we have now was gradually created.

Compared with that of other living things, the history of mankind is much shorter and is estimated to about four million years. In the early days, the regions of the world were scattered with communities of one million people, who totally depended on the natural ecosystem for food, clothing and shelter. It was 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, that they invented agriculture as an artificial mean of food and other necessary production. To meet the needs of the increasing population, people devised new farming techniques, which led to further population growth By the mid 20th century, the global population reached four billion. At present, it is estimated at 5.4 billion and is increasing ata yearly rate of 2% mainly in the tropics.

The growth of the world population has been restricted by the supply of food. In principle, animals were of three types: carnivorous, herbivorous and carrion feeders. People were also divided into two broad categories: hunting people and farming one. Thus it is natural that their culture and agricultural systems should differ from each other,

While agriculture of the farming people was small scale, settled agriculture performed mainly by family labor, hunting people had the custom of bartering their crops for other products in the market. So the hunting people adopted a large scale agricultural system to sell their products, whether farms produce or livestock products, and to achieve mass production. These two types of agriculture can still be obseved today throughout the world in production, storage and processing systems.

The world population at the time when human beings appeared on earth was estimated to be about one million and the figure increased to one billion by the industrial revolution. After the industrial revolution, there was a remarkable development of industries owing to agricultural development which in turn advanced material culture rapidly and increased population. In particular, the population explosion after World War II was brought by material culture and civilization. While it took two million years for mankind to increase to one billion, only 15 years were needed for them to achieve a growth of one billion in the second half of the 20th century. The world population, which is now 5.4 billion, is expected to swell to 7 billion by the early 21st century. Since this population growth will occur mostly in the tropics that has maladjustment to farming production. Thus the population increase has been warned to result in a grave food problem.

On the other hand, in industrial countries, where modernized agriculture is practiced, population increase has been very small and industries have made rapid progress. Many farmers have abandoned agriculture and their farms have been converted into non-farming purposes lor cash income. The scale of agriculture is expanding and large farming machines are used extensively to produce a single crop in large quantities. Such large scale agricultural system has a number of problems. For example, the harvest is heavily affected by the weather conditions every year, making farming production unstable. As a result of poor farm land management for many years, soil erosions and lowering soil productivity occur frequently. Because the production scale of this modernized farming system is very large, its effect has been strong on the world’s food problem.

The innovations in the processing and quality control techniques of farm produce and the progress of transport sysrems are making it possible to ship not only grains but also fresh vegetab1es and fruits efficiently to the market. This situation has caused the trend of internationa1 division of farming production and has accelerated trade of farm produce. In the case of Japan, its farming population now accounts for only 7% of the total and its import of farming products over 70% of the total domestic consumption. In such a situation, we have to consider agriculture in each nation from an international viewpoint. All of us need to take account of the changing environment of the world and give serious consideration to land use and degree of land use as well as to the basis and distribution of labor productivity. Especially important is to improve land productivity through “propercrops on proper farm” principle. As members of the international community, we should also study the possibility of turning into arable land, those land lots which are not used or devastated for some reasons or other and make an effort to realize it.

Before discussing the problem of land use, we have to review land environment of the entire earth.

At present, we use about 66% of the entire land on the earth (8.9 billion hectares) as farmland. While about billion hectares are natural deserts, the area of soil deterioration by artificial causes has reached two billion hectares worldwide. The rnost important cause of this artifcial land deterioration includes overgrazing, deforestation and disorderlv farming activities, and the ratio of indiscriminate and industrial development activities is lower than expected (about 8%). The desertification of grassland owing to water shortage in arid areas is estimated at 2.6 billion hectares or so, which is a critical situation that cannot be ignored. It is reported that this has occurred in about 75% of pastures, 60% of the distriets totally dependent on rainwater and 20% of irrigated land. The area of salty soil, which is considered to be most difficult to cope with, is estimated at large as 900 million hectares.

When we discuss agriculture in Southeast Asia, we have to note that this area belongs to monsoon and tropical rain forest regions and it hac two distinct seasons : rainy and dry. So agriculture in this region is typical of agriculture of the farming people dependent on rain water. Soil is abundant in sand and lacks inorganic matter and land productivity and utilization degree of arable land is low. In particular, the north eastern parts of the region have not only sandy soil but also salty ones, and we have to devote our energy to the betterment of these types of soil.

In evaluating and classifying the farming systems in recent years, we can roughly divide them into two categories: urban or suburban agriculture and regional agriculture. While the former aim at large markets in the neighboring cities and introduces protected horticulture extensively mostly for vegetables, the latter uses farms and outdoor culture mainly, with a small ratio of protected horticulture, and grows grains, vegetables and fruit trees. In the former, farmers establish a production target according to market demand for particular crops and use artificial environment and facilities as much as possible. Their farming system is a special one for producing many products having rare values at random every year. In the latter, the farmers who have a large manag ement scale generally devise farming methods suitable for the ntural environment and mass produce their crops. They adopt either iare scale, mechanized cultivation of a single crop or large scale grazing on grassland, and have large processing plants in both cases. By contrast, small scale regional farming is practiced according to the “proper crops on proper farm” principle. In this case, farmers use their own judgments and techniques in their cultivation. They try to produce specialty crops in their district and introduce a variety of systems, such as horticulture in warm and tropical areas using simple facilities and farming in sand hills, cold highlands and mountain villages. Recently, farmers in these districts use hand tractors, plows, harrows, spreaders etc.. in recent years besides manure, agricultural chemicals and compost.

In Thailand, the recent trend is the rapid development of suburan and urban agriculture. Behind this are a rising and more stable demand for the crops and their processed products from agriculture both at home and abroad.

The main reason for this is probably that urbanization and the resultant increase in civil engineering and construction projects and in the development of industrial land have led to a grealer movement of people, seeking a higher income, from rural areas into cities, which has caused increase in the population of the middle class.

But most of the residents in the rural districts still follow their traditional manners and customs. In the northern, central and southern parts of the country, farmers who account for 30% of the total population, still cultivate their farmland (accounting for over 40% of the total land) and keep their forests (nearly 30%).

Thailand is now achieving a rapid growth as a middle income country. The country’s land development programs are carried out both in the capital and local cities. Improved transport and traffic and network of communication and information are helping the achievement of this program spread nationwide. People are working hard to promote domestic industries and commerce. The results of these activities bring good effects no the country and its people. But agriculture is the most important field, not many gooy results have been got despite the government’s efforts. The main reasons are summarized below:

1. Physical Environmental conditions Topographically, Thailand can be divided into the northern, central and southern parts. Each part has mountain areas, hills, flat lands and lowland. People have continued traditional agriculture according to the natural environment where they live. In general, soil is sandy and lacks inorganic matter, and is not very good in quality. Farmers have to rely on rain water as to irrigation, which is the most important factor of agriculture. Formerly, half of the national land was forests, but this ratio has been reduced to below 30% owing to disorderly deforestation, shifting agriculture and conversion into non-farming purposes. Rainfalls in the rainy season are showers. Deforestation causes a temporary increase in the run-off after these showers, which in turn makes the scale of floods greater and increases damage of soil erosion. The productivity of land decreases, and under-developed and unused land is ruined and neglected awfully.

 

The destruction of mangrove forests in coastal areas has two main causes: construction of prawn breeding ponds (aquaculture) and coastal development projects. These development activities are causing damage, such as damage from tides, waves, winds erosion and percolation of sea water.

Considering the social environment, agriculture in Thailand cannot neglect rice farming since the people live on rice. So it cannot ignore rice cultivation relying on rain water in lowland and flat land and in terraces in the mountainous regions. The fate of rain water cultivation is that it is greatly affected byweather. A large sum of money must be spent for the large construction of dams, irrigation and drainage channels.

The projects for providing these irrigation facilities have been implemented for paddy and upland fields in some areas blessed with water resources. But the supply of these facilities will be inadequate for some time

Therefore, we will have to plan the measures we have to take urgently.

1. In the northern, central and southern parts of the country and also in its northeastern part, analyze traditional agriculture, taking into account the topography, climate, meteorology etc.. of each part which-created the manners and customs of the respective regions,

2. Examine the government’s guidance on the improvement and reform of agriculture in recent years from the standpoint of farmers.
3. SubjecLs requiring urgent studies and examination by universities.

(1) Physical environment : topographical characteristics of mountainous districts, hills, flat land, lowland and coastal areas.

• Characteristics of soils = soil texture, three phases of soil, pF, EC. field capaity
• Characteristics of weather conditions in the rainy and dry seasons
• Characteristics and continuity of precipitation and evopo-transpiration on a daily basis
• Hydrology = precipitation, river basins, run-off analysis, water balance (surface water, ground water, farmland conservation, irrigation and drainage…….)
• Lund conservation and disasters ot farmland = Soil erosion owing to water erosion (floods), rain drops, wind erosion, etc.. and preventive techniques, disaster control forests and fences, greening methods, mulching and others.

(2) Biological environment : when experimenting agroforestry in the area where forests were destroyed or shifting cultivation was practiced, young trees should always be cultured in a shade tree cu1ture bed and then transplanted in the land.

• Studies on diseases and insects (bacteria’s, mold and viral diseases, insecLs,…….) should be conducted both at the time when the site is still a wild plain and after it is turned into farmland (for crops, fruit trees, flowers)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Making concrete plans of experiments and studies.

(1) Salty soil area (Khon Kaen): polders

• Construct polders and adjustment forests to prevent floods.
• Construct irrigation and drainage canals at the same time as the construction of embankments.
• High-ridge and broad high-ridge systems.
• Devise the structure and cut-off zones to prevent the rise of underground brackish water by a capillary action.
• Use the ponds in the borrow pits for soil dressing of ridges as fish culture ponds
• Use the succession phenomenon of salt tolerant plants to adjust soil in the polder.

(2) Sandy soil area (Ubon)

• Construct flood-control embankments, fences or adjustment forests.
• Since the level of ground water is relatively shallow, trees can establish thernselves well.
• Since the soil is sandy, when evaporation from the soil surface occurs in the dry season, the root layer parts arable lands are excessively dried making it impossible to invade into.
• The worst result of this phenomenon is that the molecular absorption of the air occur and water from the soil surface is rejected, thus increasing surface run-off and causing floods.
• Adjust the water content of sandy soil using acrylic resin (having a aggregates by gelatinization etc.)

(3) Saline soil areas (Khon Kaen)

• (i) Salty soil originate in rock salt is always damaged by undergroundbrackish water. Because of this, when using this type of salty soil for cultivation, we should be taken to remove salt from the root zone of crops.
• (ii) In selecting crops, fruit trees and trees, care should be taken of their soil tolerance and drought resistance. If possible, it will be better to breed new varieties having this tolerance and resistance.
• (iii) The areas with an accumulation of salt are increasing as a result of floods. Moreover, those areas are eroded and turned into waste land, being abandoned and unused.
• (iv) Even the water is brackish, it is possible to store up rain water in the surface layers by the difference of specific gravity. Thus, it is the best policy to use rain water.
• (v) The polder system is the scheme for dealing with salty soil land.

(4) Sandy soil areas (Ubon etc.)

• (i) Areas with silty and sandy soil lacking in organic substances are found in many places.

• (ii) Precipitation in the rainy season is mostly showers. As a result of the reckless felling or conversion of forest land into farmland, the scale and frequency of floods is growing larger. Surface runoff occurs frequently making flood damage more serious.

• (iii) The ground water table is relatively high (3-4 meters) even in the dry season, and there is a high possibility of using ground water for irrigation purposes (the quantity of water?)

• (iv) During the dry season, the surface layers of about 30 centimeters become too dry by evaporation because the supply of capillary water fromunderground is cut off. As a resut the

  invading air is absorbed molecularly by sand surface, thus infiltrated water being repelled. Rainwater is thus hard to infiltrate into the ground, thereby promoting floods (trees are an exception by reason of toproot).

• (v) Therefore, trees are growing well once they have taken root. So while we should develop flood control forests, we need to construct ditches around arable land and ponds to catch and store up rainwater as much as possible or we should consider ways to store up rainwater as ground water.

• (vi) To give water retainability to the root zones of arable land, we need to consider the system of using acrylic resin (high water holding ability) ro polyvinyl alcohol (aggregate structure can be increased) around the zones.

(5) Hillside areas (Phitsanulok etc.)

             Using the hillside areas that have been abandoned as barren land in an effective idea. Hilly country areas exist between mountains and flatland, Because of this, when we turn these areas into arable land, we have to take steps to prevent floods and soil erosion and to improve soil (farmyard manure can be used for this purpose) In addition, we need to make the most of rainwater and unused water of floods. We should design farmland giving adequate consideration to the structure of land in these areas, and study the optimum type of cultivation (breed improvement of variety, seedling and sowing and planting, taking care, harvesting, product processing).

             Farmland style may be better by way of high broad ridge surrounding ditches to collect rain water as much as possible than usual.