Agronomic Challenges and Opportunities for Smallholder Terrace Agriculture in Developing Countries.

Tejendra Chapagain,Manish N Raizada

doi:10.3389/fpls.2017.00331

Abstract

Improving land productivity is essential to meet increasing food and forage demands in hillside and mountain communities. Tens of millions of smallholder terrace farmers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America who earn $1–2 per day do not have access to peer-reviewed knowledge of best agronomic practices, though they have considerable traditional ecological knowledge. Terrace farmers also lack access to affordable farm tools and inputs required to increase crop yields. The objectives of this review are to highlight the agronomic challenges of terrace farming, and offer innovative, low-cost solutions to intensify terrace agriculture while improving local livelihoods. The article focuses on smallholder farmers in developing nations, with particular reference to Nepal. The challenges of terrace agriculture in these regions include lack of quality land area for agriculture, erosion and loss of soil fertility, low yield, poor access to agricultural inputs and services, lack of mechanization, labor shortages, poverty, and illiteracy. Agronomic strategies that could help address these concerns include intensification of terraces using agro-ecological approaches along with introduction of light-weight, low-cost, and purchasable tools and affordable inputs that enhance productivity and reduce female drudgery. To package, deliver, and share these technologies with remote hillside communities, effective scaling up models are required. One opportunity to enable distribution of these products could be to “piggy-back” onto pre-existing snackfood/cigarette/alcohol distribution networks that are prevalent even in the most remote mountainous regions of the world. Such strategies, practices, and tools could be supported by formalized government policies dedicated to the well-being of terrace farmers and ecosystems, to maintain resiliency at a time of alarming climate change. We hope this review will inform governments, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector to draw attention to this neglected and vulnerable agro-ecosystem in developing countries.

Highlights

Terrace farming or terracing is a major source of livelihoods for a large section of hillside farmers across the world
To enable distribution of these products to rural communities, one opportunity is to “piggy-back” onto preexisting snackfood/cigarette/alcohol distribution networks that are prevalent even in remote mountainous regions around the developing world. Such strategies could be supported by formalized government policies and organizations dedicated to the well-being of terrace farmers and ecosystems
The urgency of maintaining and improving terrace agriculture has been highlighted and become an important concern of the United Nations, in agencies such as UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), FAO, and GIAHS (Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System) (Agnoletti et al, 2015). Such concerns along with the associated policies, practices, and tools that promote the livelihoods of terrace farmers will help to maintain generations of knowledge about mountain ecosystems including the diversity of crops that can be cultivated and collected to maintain resiliency at a time of alarming climate change

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Terrace farming or terracing is a major source of livelihoods for a large section of hillside farmers across the world. Decreasing numbers of livestock in hills and mountains in recent years has limited the availability of livestock manure on terrace farms in South Asia (Sharma, 1996; Singh, 1997) This situation, combined with the higher rates of illiteracy and low purchasing power of hillside farmers, further limits access to technological and extension services including access to commodity pricing information. Urb.) resulted in reduced competition for water between barriers and companion crops in the water deficient highlands of Kenya (Guto et al, 2012) In this region, yields of maize and soybean were shown to be suppressed by the barriercrop interface (e.g., due to shading) but the yield losses were consistently compensated by improved crop performance at the TABLE 2 | Low-cost and sustainable practices and tools for terrace farms (Source: SAKNepal, 2017).

10. Inverse sloping

Mini-tillers

SUMMARY AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

Discussion