8 Agroforestry on smallholder sugar-cane farms in Fiji

Official neglect of traditional polycultural agroforestry systems can be seen as the opposite side of the coin of official emphasis on and encouragement of commercial monocropping, commercial production of livestock, and industrial forestry. And yet, as surveys of smallholder sugar-cane farms in Fiji demonstrate, small-scale commercial operations can maintain a diversity of useful trees in a landscape primarily dedicated to monocropping.

As a legacy of over a century of sugar-cane cultivation and emphasis on cash cropping for export, much of the drier western and northern sides of Fiji's two main islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, are landscapes of smallholder cane farms (typically 4 ha in size), farmed mostly by the descendants of indentured workers from India. Homes are usually located on farms so that settlement is dispersed in contrast to the nucleated villages of the indigenous Fijians.

Although production has long been strongly focused on sugar cane (and to a considerably weaker degree on annual subsistence crops such as rice, pulses, maize, and a variety of vegetables), Indian farmers have traditionally planted or encouraged a wide variety of trees around their houses, as well as on grazing lands, river banks, and along roads and boundaries. Unfortunately, because of high world sugar market prices and a deliberate policy of the Fiji Government to increase sugar-cane production (Fiji's number one source of foreign exchange) in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, farmers extended their cane planting onto grazing lands, to the edges of rivers and drainage ditches, secondary forest stands, and areas formerly reserved for rice and other crops. The process resulted in widespread agro deforestation and resultant overexploitation of existing firewood and timber reserves and grazing land, thus tightening the causal circle of agrodeforestation, overgrazing, and plundering of scarce fuel-wood resources.

Ali's (1986) in-depth study of 26 smallholder sugar-cane farms near Tavua in northern Viti Levu showed that in the study area of 146.3 ha the land under sugar cane increased from 78.7 ha (54 per cent) in the early 1970s to 107.6 ha (74 per cent) in 1982. Associated with, and facilitating, the increase in sugar-cane monoculture were: uncontrolled felling of trees, often with bulldozers, on grazing lands, and along farm edges and river courses, to make room for more sugar cane; a decline in the cultivation of rice and vegetables on separate plots and as intercrops with sugar cane; and a decline in livestock husbandry.

Whereas in 1971, all 26 households planted vegetables and spices on separate plots, or as intercrops with sugar cane, away from the home site, by 1982, only 17 farmers (65 per cent) planted vegetables (3 on separate plots, 5 as intercrops with cane, and 9 with both). In the past, most farmers had set aside pieces of land for vegetable gardens, normally on the alluvial soils along river flood plains and near wells, but extension of sugar-cane plantings into these areas forced most farmers to move their vegetable plots to their home allotments (24 of the 26 farmers had allotments for a house on raised ground at a distance from their farm land).

The loss of the trees scattered in the landscape meant a loss of ornamentation, timber, shade for livestock, fruit, edible leaves, living fences, green manure, wood for handicrafts, food for livestock, medicines, and fuel. The ecological stability of the sugar-cane landscapes was also lessened as the trees had served to enrich soil, to control erosion, and as wind-breaks. The only beneficial effect was that, in the face of increasing agrodeforestation and pressure on remaining tree resources, farmers were forced and, in some cases, encouraged to increase tree planting around their home compounds. A survey of trees on sugar-cane farms throughout Viti Levu, Fiji, in 1985 provided an inventory of several score of tree species protected or cultivated around residences, the most common being coconut, mango, papaya, the drumstick, or horseradish, tree (Moringa oleifera), curry leaf (Murraya koenigii), Citrus spp., tamarind, monkey-pod (Samanea saman), soursop, and Albizia lebbeck (table 9).

As pressure increases for monocultural crop production, and as large tracts of rural land become increasingly scarce or the population of the rural landless increases, the relative importance of rural home gardens in the provision of food, culturally useful products, and ecological benefits will increase. Greater official recognition of, and support for, rural home-garden agroforestry alongside monocultural agriculture could help to stem the processes of rural agrodeforestation.

Table 9 Names and relative importance of tree species found on sugar-cane farms, western Viti Levu, Fiji, between Sigatoka and Tavua, 1985-1986. (Under "local names," I = Indian, F = Fijian; under "importance," 5 = found on 75-100% of farms, 4 = 50-74%, 3 = 25-49%, 2 = 10-24%, and 1 = <10%)

Source: Field surveys by the authors, 1985-1986.