Population pressure, environmental constraints and agricultural change in Bangladesh: examples from three agroecosystems
Population pressure, environmental constraints and agricultural change in Bangladesh: examples from three agroecosystems
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孟加拉国的人口压力、环境限制和农业变革：三个农业生态系统的例子
DOI：
10.1016/0167-8809(95)00625-3
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发表时间：
1995
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Abubakar M. Ali
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Abubakar M. Ali
本研究考察了农业变化的文化生态学理论的基础上，40年（1950-1990年）的时间数据集收集了130个农庄家庭生活在孟加拉国的三个村庄。那些村庄代表了干旱、湿地和改造后的灌溉水稻农业生态系统。由于季风洪水和旱季缺水，所有三个村庄的种植密度和土地生产率都低于1950年代的全国平均水平。随着人口的增长，这些村庄的农民采取了各种策略来增加种植密度和土地生产力。这些战略包括调整土地水平、改变种植时间表、采用新品种以适应环境以及绿色革命技术变革。随着时间的推移，这些改变环境和减少其限制的尝试增加了种植密度和土地生产力。然而，三个村庄的农业增长在空间上各不相同，主要是因为农民有能力控制干旱，并在低扬程水泵灌溉的帮助下将高产水稻作物的种植扩大到旱季。人口压力迫使农民加强农业，但在严重的环境制约条件下，人口增长本身并不是引起理想的农业变化的唯一因素。农民减少环境限制的技术能力在农业增长中发挥了关键作用。本研究支持农业变迁的文化生态学理论。
This study has examined the cultural ecology theory of agricultural change on the basis of a 40 year (1950–1990) temporal data set collected from 130 farmstead households living in three villages in Bangladesh. The villages represent xeric, wetland, and transformed irrigated rice agroecosystems. Owing to monsoon flooding and dry season shortage of water, both cropping intensity and land productivity in all three villages were lower than their national averages in the 1950s. As population grew over time, farmers in these villages have adopted various strategies to increase cropping intensity and land productivity. Such strategies included the adjustments of land levels, changes in cropping schedules, adoption of new cultivars to suit the environment, and Green Revolution technological changes. These attempts to modify the environment and reduce its constraints have increased both cropping intensity and land productivity over time. However, agricultural growth varied spatially among the three villages due mostly to farmers' ability to control drought and expand the cultivation of high yielding variety of rice crops into the dry season with the help of low-lift pump irrigation. Population pressure forced farmers to intensify agriculture, but under conditions of severe environmental constraints, population growth alone was not the only factor to cause desired agricultural change. Farmers' technological capabilities to reduce the environmental constraints have played a key role in agricultural growth. The study supports the cultural ecology theory of agricultural change.