Agroforestry Agroforestry in South Kalimantan

Types of Agroforests Agroforestry Practices

in South Kalimantan Province

Mixed Rubber Gardens

This is the major agroforestry system found in all villages visited, covering wide areas, which steadily increase in size. Rubber gardens are part of the shifting cultivation system. Every upland field is planted to tree crops, while the rice seedlings are still small. Besides rubber, this usually includes a variety of fruit tree and other economic tree species , the most prominent of which are durian species (durian, papakin), chempedak, candlenut (kemiri), rambutan (particularly in Panaan) and langsat (particularly in Salikung). While rubber and candlenut are always marketed, the marketing of fruits depends on current prices, the availability of transportation, and on demand. While farmers may also bring the fruits to the market themselves, the marketing sitution causes them frequently to wait for traders to come to their village.

In former times, farmers usually just planted several fruit tree species around the field hut, later forming fruit tree islands (pulau buah) still found in many places. According to customary law (hukum adat), the family who first opened a certain area of primary forest, is the rightful owner of the land, even after it has been left for fallow. This land ownership system was known and respected within and between villages. According to Indonesian national law, however, only land planted in trees crops is regarded as being owned. Only for cultivated land farmers will receive compensation, should the government allocates the area for other uses, including private companies like timber or oil palm plantation firms and government sponsored transmigration programmes. Nowadays, farmers have try to establish a visible sign of their land ownership.

The easiest way to this is in fact, to plant rubber seedlings, which are widely available in already existing rubber gardens. In gardens, which are not regularly cleaned from secondary regrowth, however, survival of rubber seedlings is likely to be low. Each family opens new lands as upland rice fields every year, or at least every second year. Because most land near the village is already owned or planted with rubber, increasingly far away areas are opened. Until the rice has been harvested, the family stays there in a temporary field hut to guard the field from pests. In the consecutive year or two, the old upland field still yields bananas, papaya, cassava (tubers and leaves), vegetables (particularly eggplant and daun katuk, the leaves of a small shrub Sauropus androgynos) and spices (particularly bird chilli, cabe rawit and ginger).

If the farmers plan the garden to play a central role in the household economy and the rubber trees are still small, the garden is cleaned regularly. The intensity and frequency of underbrushing, however, can vary widely. Bp. Meidi of Rantaunato even sprayed his four year old rubber garden regularly with herbicide (‘round up’). He received the capital for this considerable expenses from the sale of the harvest of his extensive, well-managed coffee garden near his house. Far away gardens are frequently not cared for, because for practical reasons the family prefers to focus on their stands located close to the village. However, there are also mature rubber gardens close to the village, which for example in Salikung are not tapped. In this case the reason for not tapping is the tree that the owners prefer to work in the as this is a significant source of income. When young rubber gardens are not cleaned regularly, the survival rate of seedlings is low. Besides providing proof of landownership, the garden still can be cleaned and tapped at any time, if rubber prices improve, or if children marry and are in need of capital. Therefore local rubber gardens in the literature frequently have been termed the “rubber bank”, where the farmers can draw upon in times of need.

The need for a security like this is also obvious for several other reasons. First, the lack of rural credit. Under the present situation, farmers have access to credit only if they are member of a cooperative (KUD). Commonly, however, cooperatives are operational only in some transmigration villages. Second, the insecurity of customary land rights. The status of traditionally owned lands is always less secure than those which have official ownership certificates, but which in rural areas outside densely settled Java and Bali are mostly owned by government-sponsored transmigrants . It is common place, that locally owned, extensively used lands are allocated by the government for other uses: transmigration areas, tree crop plantations, or logging concessions.

This situation is a major factor behind the current expansion of local agriculture. While in former times, primary forests were regarded as common resource by the local people, nowadays there is an attemp to deplete this resource by a variety of groups: logging concessions (HPH), timber plantation companies (HTI), mining enterprises, palm oil plantations, government-sponsored transmigrants and local settlers from adjoining areas. These groups in a way seem to compete for the remaining forests, everybody wants to get a piece as long as there is still some left. Because the local people do not want to be left behind by all other stakeholders, they also try to lay claim to new lands. After all, they have been there first, and it is therefore reasonable that they want to get a piece of the cake, too. Establishing large areas of rubber gardens is their way of claiming land ownership before all forest land is to be divided.

Pepper Gardens

Pepper gardens are mainly found in the area of Salikung. Pepper cultivation in the project area has already been described in detail in the report on estate crops (Bacon, November 2000). Pepper is trained up live Erythrina arborea (dadap) poles, which are planted about two years before the pepper vines. In the stands, usually only some single fruit trees or palms, like aren, coconut and pinang, can be found. The latter do not disturb the pepper plants, because they do not have a large canopy. Because of their small number, the produce of the interplanted trees is mainly for own consumption. In some occasions, also mixed pepper-coffee gardens were observed. In this case, the Erythrina can double-function also as a shade tree for coffee. Compared to the other garden types present in the area, pepper gardens are more intensively managed. The gardens are cleaned from secondary regrowth on a regular basis, and no spontaneous species are allowed to grow between the pepper vines. In the understorey of the pepper gardens, bird chili (cabe rawit), ginger and galangal (kencur) are cultivated. This is a most suitable intercrop, which can profit from the cleanliness of the pepper gardens and the light shade provided by the Erythrina. From the aspect of space available in the pepper gardens, it should be possible to cultivate large amounts of tuber spices in its understorey. Unfavourable prices due to the difficult transport situation, however, still stands in the way of this.

Fruit Tree Gardens

Dayaks have a long tradition of mixed gardens going back to the times before rubber cultivation. Also Banjarese that spontanously migrated to the area appear to have adopted dayak models and mix their rubber with fruit trees. Originating from fruit tree islands that developed around field huts, Dayak have developed mixed fruit tree gardens of sometimes large size. They usually are located close to the village (Doroi, Wanan, Missim), and still can be found in areas of former settlements (fruit tree garden of Bp. Diris, near Rakutat). The consultant found similar structures in Dayak settlements of Sanggau regency, West Kalimantan. Because these gardens have constant productivity, they are usually not cleared and grow to very old ages. Old fruit tree gardens are of very high biodiversity. Besides planted and cultivated species, they also harbour a variety of spontaneous fruit trees and other used plants.

Of particular interest are the various fruit tree species originating from the area, some of which might have a further marketing and development potential. Cherished within the village and at local markets is, for example the fruit buku­buku (Dimocarpus longan ssp. malesianus var. malesianus). It is a close relative of longan (lengkeng), a fruit that in Indonesia is planted mainly in East Java and is highly priced at national and international markets. Other potential fruit tree species might include Ramania (Bouea macrophylla), Kalangkala (Litsea roxburghii), Buah Mundar (Garcinia sp.) and Kapol (Baccaurea dulcis). They are all already marketed locally and said to be of good taste. Besides in fruit tree gardens, most of them are also cultivated to a certain degree within the house compound or in rubber gardens.

Mixed coffee gardens

In all villages besides rubber, coffee is an important cash crop. It is cultivated in a variety of systems. Some farmers have interplanted coffee with rubber. This mixture functions quite well as long as the rubber is still young, because both crops need regular cleaning, and rubber provides some shade to the coffee plants. When the rubber canopy becomes too dense, however, the coffee plants don’t thrive well anymore, and are usually neglected. This mixture but not so often in villages Salikung and Kumap, but has been also observed in hamlet Rakutat (Panaan village). A popular and thriving combination is the cultivation of coffee with bananas on the fertile riverside soils. These kind of gardens were particularly observed in the hamlets Rantaunato (Salikung village), as well as Rakutat and Rampayan (Panaan village) and in Kumap village. Also popular in Salikung, as already mentioned, is the mixture of pepper and coffee under Erythrina arborea