Agriculture in the Malaysian Region

Chapter 12. Crops and Systems Revisited

256 Agriculture in the Malaysian Region 256 chapter 12 crops and Systems revisited Although the details may have changed somewhat, the broad characteristics of the systems described earlier in the book remain. Shifting cultivators still grow their own food as do rice farmers. Shifting cultivators also gather jungle produce such as rattans and gums to provide a cash income. But wage labour may now often play a significant role in balancing domestic economies, sometimes with income generated locally, even in remote parts, as some of the more vigorously-active and adventurous urban-dwellers from the region’s cities and tourists from overseas explore them. The traditional Dayak berjalai may now work in reverse. Remittances from detached members of families have also become an income source. Subsistence survives but now means how to obtain cash, when and where you can, for spatial mobility has increased enormously (see Brookfield, Abdul Samad Hadi and Zaharah Mahmud, 1991 for a case study). Shifting cultivation By the late 1970s shifting cultivation was under attack in the region as it had been since the late nineteenth century when colonial administrators, largely at the instigation of professional foresters, attempted to prohibit the practice. Nevertheless, in the central ranges of the Peninsula burnt patches of secondary forest and clearings at varying stages of regeneration were still to be seen. In Sabah and Sarawak the practice was much more extensive though, especially in Sarawak it was already being internally subverted by the practice of planting seedling rubber after clearings were abandoned (Jensen 1966). In those states pressures to abandon or at least modify shifting cultivation have come from two main directions. One is from government which sees the practice as it has long done, as primitive and wasteful and a potent contributor to soil erosion and subsequent Crops and Systems Revisited 257 sedimentation. The other is from commercial agricultural interests especially those seeking land for oil palm and in some areas, for ginger. At the present, estimates of the area affected vary widely. There would seem to be very little active shifting cultivation left in the Peninsula as this author’s two reconnaissance traverses across the Main Ranges in May 2011 and an examination of remote-sensed imagery suggest. Nevertheless, as late as 1983 it was estimated by Zuraina Majid that 36 to 40,000 people depended on this system (in Brookfield, Potter and Byron 1996). But in Sabah and Sarawak it continues for it has long been integral to the culture of Dayak, Kadazan and culturally-related peoples. Brookfield, Potter and Byron (1995) collate a number of estimates of the numbers of people involved and the areas affected, though these vary widely. For the late 1970s it was estimated that about 19 per cent of Sarawak was under shifting cultivation, including both land currently planted and the much larger area of regenerating forest. A decade later it was thought that between 3.2 and 3.5 million hectares were involved, representing about 28 per cent of the state’s land area. Other estimates suggested that 159,000 or alternatively only 72,000 ha were in cultivation in any year. A yet further estimate indicated that 260,000 people used some 2.15 million ha for this form of cultivation. Wherever the truth of the matter may lie there can be no doubt that land once in swiddens is attractive to the growers of oil palm especially. Rubber is still sometimes planted on old clearings (ladangs) but other crops have been added. Gregersen et al. (2003), for example have noted the addition of ginger, sold for cash. Where the potential area for the creation of ladangs is reduced, manioc may come to rival hill rice for its calorific yield much surpasses that of the cereal. Where access to local markets allows, hill rice also finds its way, for its taste and keeping qualities are superior to those of rice grown in wet fields. Since there is a considerable premium for the hill-grown article, up to double the price of the inferior grain, growers can buy that and pocket the difference. Sedentarization also has its effects on crop assemblages. Traditionally, long-house and other settlements of shifting cultivators were periodically moved though very rarely as frequently as every year. But the provision of services such as clinics, schooling and other services tend to reduce this and in many communities no further moves are in prospect. This means that the planting of fruit trees, and in some areas, pepper, is...