Abstract
In the face of a global pandemic, the ever-present threat of climate change and the highly unstable economic and social global systems the resource poor smallholder farmer is increasingly finding it harder to meet with the daily challenges of sustaining the livelihood of the farmer and his family. This paper is a review of the challenges of smallholder’s rubber farmers, strategies adopted to build the resilience of the farmers and technological adaptations to sustain the resilience of the smallholder’s rubber farmers in Nigeria. The work looked at the manipulation of space or spacing techniques in rubber-based agroforestry systems, mixed farming in rubber production, cropping patterns, soil nutrient and weed management methods and socioeconomic benefits to the rubber smallholders. The results indicated that RBAF systems helped resource poor rural farmers increase family food supply, improved income and reduced the gestation period of rubber leading to improved livelihood. This results will help in attracting more smallholders to rubber plantation establishment, leading to increased national rubber production for local and international markets and increase industrial development in rubber and rubber related products.
Highlights
The current challenges of the smallholder rubber farmers in the face of global change are daunting
The area under rubber smallholdings has experienced dwindling hectarage; this deficit in rubber production is attributed to the following incidence: Abandoned plantation, conversion of plantation to arable farms and other non-agricultural activities and competition with other tree crops such as oil palm and cocoa
To reverse the trend smallholders’ farmers, need to be organized into rubber comparatives and associations. They should be encouraged to adopt the application of suitable farming systems such as intercropping at immaturity stage and mixed farming at canopy closure to stimulate their participation in rubber production
Summary
The current challenges of the smallholder rubber farmers in the face of global change are daunting. To reverse the trend smallholders’ farmers, need to be organized into rubber comparatives and associations They should be encouraged to adopt the application of suitable farming systems such as intercropping at immaturity stage and mixed farming at canopy closure to stimulate their participation in rubber production. Agroforestry defined as the intentional use of trees in the cropping systems to increase farm productivity, diversify income sources and provide environmental services; can play an important role in helping smallholder rubber farmers, build resilience and reduce their vulnerability to global change in a sustainable way. The objective of this paper was to review research and development strategies developed in Nigeria, aimed at the manipulation of the underutilized spaces within rubber plantations for rubber-based agroforestry and mixed farming systems to diversify sources of income and build farmers resilience to cope with the realities of new local and global challenges in Nigeria
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