No-till alley cropping using leguminous trees biomass: a farmer- and eco-friendly sustainable alternative to shifting cultivation in the Amazonian periphery?
No-till alley cropping using leguminous trees biomass: a farmer- and eco-friendly sustainable alternative to shifting cultivation in the Amazonian periphery?
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DOI：
10.1007/s10668-021-01744-y
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发表时间：
2021-08
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Emanoel G. de Moura;S. Mooney;L. S. Campos;Keila D. O. Bastos;A. C. Aguiar;S. Jewitt
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文献类型：
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作者：
Emanoel G. de Moura;S. Mooney;L. S. Campos;Keila D. O. Bastos;A. C. Aguiar;S. Jewitt
农业增长对于缓解贫穷和养活巴西亚马孙周边地区的人口至关重要，那里的刀耕火种农业继续支持350万至400万人的生计。我们与当地社区合作，开发了一种新的作物-牲畜一体化系统，名为“免耕胡同种植，使用豆科树皮覆盖”，以取代该地区的轮作。虽然这些技术已经证明了它们的农艺效率，但它们也必须满足农民的需求。因此，这项研究旨在更好地捕捉农民对新技术与传统农业系统相比的看法，以期确定采用新系统的障碍。我们的结果表明，农民对新的作物-牲畜-牲畜一体化系统的抵抗力很低，尽管我们发现缺乏对免耕系统等可持续土壤管理方法的了解。从采用的角度来看，这可能表明农民认为与刀耕火种相比，新技术相当复杂，没有充分了解它有助于可持续的土壤管理。此外，部署新技术的成本被发现是一个关键障碍，主要是因为农业活动与以家庭为基础的食物消费密切相关，而不是提高质量和增加销售附加值。我们的结论是，在潮湿的热带地区，有机会用可持续的农业集约化来取代轮作耕作。这一新办法可能有助于克服一些弱点，这些弱点阻碍了农民在以轮作为主的地区，如巴西亚马孙周边地区利用现有的生态系统服务。
Agricultural growth is essential for both alleviating poverty and feeding the population of the Brazilian Amazonian periphery, where slash-and-burn agriculture continues to support the livelihoods of between 3.5 and 4 million people. We developed a new integrated-crop-livestock-system named “no-till in alley cropping using leguminous tree mulch” in partnership with local communities, to replace shifting cultivation in the region. Although such technologies have proven their agronomic efficiency, they must also meet farmers’ needs. Therefore, this study aimed to capture farmers’ perceptions about how the new technology compares with conventional agricultural systems with a view to identifying barriers to the adoption of the new system. Our results indicated low levels of resistance by farmers to the new integrated-crop-livestock-system although we identified a lack of knowledge about sustainable soil management approaches like no-till systems. From an adoption point of view, this might indicate that farmers found the new technology rather complex compared to slash-and-burn and did not fully understand that it contributed to sustainable soil management. In addition, the cost of deploying the new technology was found to be a critical barrier, mainly because agricultural activity is closely linked to family-based food consumption, rather than quality improvement and value-added for sale. We concluded that there is an opportunity to replace shifting cultivation by sustainable agricultural intensification in the humid tropics. This new approach may help to overcome weaknesses which have prevented farmers from taking advantage of available ecosystem services in regions dominated by shifting cultivation such as the Brazilian Amazonian periphery.