Why smallholder farms’ practices are already agroecological despite conventional agriculture applied on market-gardening

Abstract

According to experts, agroecology gathers agricultural practices that improve resource efficiency, that strengthen resilience and that secure social equity and responsibility. The diffusion of this set of principles may innovate in most developed countries where conventional agriculture is widespread but may be questionable by agrarian society of sub-Saharan African country like Madagascar. The Itasy Region has developed there vegetable crops for marketing purpose. Part of the Itasy agricultural practices may be assimilated to conventional ones, justifying research and development action dedicated to the promotion of agroecology. However, a question arises: Are farmers who benefit from conventional agriculture interested in reducing chemical input to meet major principles of agroecology? A research project called SECuRE has deliberately chosen the peri-urban area of Itasy to perform a survey to 171 households that are representative of smallholder farms inside two Communes of Arivonimamo, a District of Itasy. This paper aims to assess how far agroecological practices may be integrated or intensified in their farming systems despite a long-term effect of conventional agriculture. As major results, among smallholder farms’ strategy, use of fertilizer is determining agricultural income. Organic fertilizer application is mandatory for almost all the diversified crops whereas mineral fertilizer secures global agricultural margins by smallholder farms. Organic fertilizer sources are managed at farming system scale by associating livestock and by using crop residue to limit as possible export of nutrients on soil by crops. This strategy includes the territorial management of fertility from extended grassland that remains for common use. Finally, whatever the training they may have attended or inherited from parents, farmers grow-up in experience and improve agricultural practice in long term. This study concludes that market-gardening in Itasy mobilizes reduced chemical input at farm scale. Agroecology is quite widespread there according to most of the principles advanced by experts.