The rubber showcase in Sumatra

Penot Eric. 2004. The rubber showcase in Sumatra. In : Beyond tropical deforestation : from tropical deforestation to forest cover dynamics and forest development. Babin Didier (ed.). Montpellier : CIRAD, 299-310. ISBN 2-87614-577-4

Résumé : As with cocoa, a combination of available land and centres with fairly dense population is a prerequisite for a boom. However, in the case of rubber the boom has been far more progressive than that for cocoa due to three main factors. First, Sumatra and Kalimantan islands were almost empty at the beginning of the twentieth century, with a population density of less than five inhabitants per square km. It took time for migrants - mainly from neighbouring Java, in the case of Sumatra - as well as the indigenous population - local Dayak and Chinese migrants in Kalimantan - to conquer the vast central plains of Sumatra and Kalimantan). Second, although the demand was very strong and rubber prices very attractive, the first plantings were physically limited by both distances and seed availability. The main rubber-cropping system was the jungle-rubber system based on the use of unselected seedlings. Seeds were collected in estates, mainly located in North Sumatra and West Java, and then distributed or sold to farmers through networks of traders or missionaries. Another constraint was that seed production was limited to one month per year and seeds have to be planted within four weeks after harvest. Lastly. infrastructure and trade were not as developed in the first half of the century as they were in the second half, when the cocoa boom occurred (in particular since the I980s). Rubber was immediately seen by local farmers as a very promising crop, mainly due to its ability to be combined with the secondary forest regrowth in a complex agroforestry system called jungle rubber. With unselected rubber seedlings (at no cost), no inputs (no fertilizers or herbicide) and a very limited labour requirement for planting after upland rice, jungle rubber is very easy to implement, as it profits directly from the 'forest rent'. The lack of capital requirement for establishment and the very progressive migrations enable us to define jungle rubber as typical indigenous agroforestry. Since jungle rubber is very close to secondary forest in terms of biomass and structure, one might consider it as maintaining forest rent and creating a sustainable and permanent 'agroforest rent'. Indonesia is now the second largest producer behind Thailand.

Mots-clés Agrovoc : Hévéa, production, développement agricole, structure agricole

Mots-clés géographiques Agrovoc : Sumatra, Indonésie

Classification Agris : E16 - Économie de la production

Champ stratégique Cirad : Axe 1 (2005-2013) - Intensification écologique

Auteurs et affiliations

• Penot Eric, CIRAD-TERA-REV (FRA) ORCID: 0000-0002-2773-5440

Source : Cirad - Agritrop (https://agritrop.cirad.fr/523273/)

Métriques

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