Agrodiversity Lessons in Mountain Land Management

Abstract

Intensification of crop production in the mountains has long been perceived as unsustainable. However, since the late 1980s it has become increasingly evident that decline and collapse are not always inevitable. The present article provides examples from the highlands of northern Thailand to show that local food security can be improved while impacts on the resource base and the environment are minimized. This was achieved with the help of cropping systems developed and adapted by farmers themselves (Figure 1). Studying farmers' management techniques will allow this success to be repeated elsewhere, but only if it is based on the idea of dynamic variation in cropping system management that occurs within and between mountain agroecosystems, defined as agrodiversity.