Permanent smallholder rubber agroforestry systems in Sumatra, Indonesia

Although there is a long tradition in Southeast Asia of trading resins and latex collected from the natural forest or secondary forests that were part of shifting cultivation cycles, the introduction more than a century ago of Pára rubber ( Hevea brasilienses [Willd. ex Adr. Juss.] Muell Arg.) from the Amazon to Southeast Asia formed the basis for the spontaneous and broad- based adoption of new agroforestry practices at a scale not matched elsewhere. “The history of agriculture probably has not seen any other case where the introduction of a single crop had such a dramatic effect on the economic con - dition of smallholders in vast areas, as the introduction of Hevea brasiliensis in Indonesia” (van Gelder 1950:428). The food crop–based shifting cultivation systems in which the fallow was of secondary importance were transformed into systems in which the food crop that could grow in between young rubber trees became a secondary aspect of a production system relying on rubber to generate income. Rubber agroforestry appears to have many of the attributes of a best-bet alternative to food crop–based slash-and-burn agriculture: They are profitable, produce easily marketed products, and generate environmen - tal benefits. Therefore rubber agroforests of various management intensities have become one important focus of Alternatives to Slash and Burn’s ( asb ’s) research program (Tomich et al. 1998, 2001; van Noordwijk et al. 1995, 1997). Yet the impact of this land use system—which helped attract migrants to the forest margins—on the rate of deforestation is still debated (van Noord - wijk et al. 1995; Tomich et al. 2001).

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