Gambling with the Land: The Contemporary Evolution of Southeast Asian Agriculture

Chapter 6: Expansion and Intensification of Food Crops and Increase in Livestock Production

Expansion and Intensification of Food Crops and Increase in Livestock Production 81 81 CHAPTER 6 Expansion and Intensification of Food Crops and Increase in Livestock Production “Despite the shifting fads and fancies in development paradigms on the role of the state, and despite accumulating examples of government failures in the past decades, all would agree that the public sector has crucial roles to play in the process of economic development.” (Balisacan and Fuwa 2007: 11) 82 Gambling with the Land Although in several regions, other cereals and tubers are widely consumed and in some cases even favoured, rice remains by far the major staple in Southeast Asia. It is also the most widely cultivated food crop and, in every country, the one which has received and continues to receive the most attention from the authorities. In fact, the green revolution in the region has primarily targeted rice cultivation. Its expansion, or rather the expansion of its harvested area,* has been substantial everywhere, largely thanks to improved and more widespread irrigation, which itself has allowed for the diffusion of the practice of double cropping (Figures 5.21 and 5.22). Also, notwithstanding the phenomenal territorial expansion over recent decades of several cash crops, notably oil palm, rubber and coffee, in terms of area cultivated, let alone harvested, rice remains the most widespread single crop in all countries except Malaysia, where oil palm dominates the landscape. Finally, it is almost exclusively a peasant crop, as nearly everywhere it is only produced on family farms. Between the early 1960s and 2008, the entire Southeast Asian rice harvested area increased over 60 per cent, from 28 million to nearly 47 million hectares, a large yet undetermined proportion of that growth being attributable to the increasing adoption of double cropping. Every country has been involved, but to different degrees, with the largest one having taken the lead. Indonesia’s rice area grew by 80 per cent, only Burma matching that rate of growth. Thailand and Vietnam have also done quite well, having both expanded their rice domain by about 60 per cent over the same Plate 32 50-year period. However, in the latter three countries , the percentage of agricultural area allocated to rice cultivation remains much higher than in Indonesia , where rice land represents “only” 25 per cent of all cultivated area. In Burma, where that percentage has increased by more than half, a growth rate unequalled in the region, rice land occupied nearly 70 per cent of all agricultural land in 2008. Very high proportions are also found in Thailand and Vietnam. But in both countries, these have not changed much since the early 1960s. In fact, in Vietnam, even if it has been slightly reduced, proportion of rice land to total cultivated area is still the highest in the region, at more than 70 per cent. Overall, rice cultivation represents by far the dominant form of agricultural land use in mainland Southeast Asia. However, in Laos and Cambodia, where it is proportionately less widespread than in the other three mainland countries, the share of rice land has been decreasing since the early 1960s. In the case of Cambodia, the decrease was particularly significant on two occasions: during the Khmer Rouge regime; and in 1984–85, when expansion of commercial crops started to boom, reducing thereby the share of rice land. Almost the opposite has been occurring in Burma, the second most rice focused country in the entire Southeast Asian region. In the archipelago, where plantation crops have been more widely cultivated since colonial days (Robequain 1958, Courtenay 1965), the share of rice land over total agricultural land is still much less significant, particularly in Malaysia, where it has also been decreasing steadily since the late 1970s. * “Data refer to the area from which a crop is gathered. … If the crop under consideration is harvested more than once during the year as a consequence of successive cropping (i.e., the same crop is sown or planted more than once in the same field during the year), the area is counted as many times as harvested ” (FAOSTAT 2010) (our emphasis). Expansion and Intensification of Food Crops and Increase in Livestock Production 83 Figure 6.1 Harvested area of rice by country, 1961–2008 Figure 6.2 Percentage of agricultural area allocated to rice production by country, 1961–2008 Archipelagic Southeast Asia Mainland Southeast Asia Source: FAOSTAT 2010...