BLE 211: Principles of Agriculture and Forestry

1. BLE 211: Principles of Agriculture and Forestry Lecture 1

2. Introduction Agriculture • Is the oldest and largest Primary industry. • Is characterised by an integration of farm and household to produce food and other products. • Most of the production activities are closely interrelated as they all utilise labour, land and capital.

3. Introduction • The rapidly evolving industrial and commercial world of today depends on continued agricultural development to supply the basic needs of the labour force and for some raw materials. • Agricultural production takes time and it is affected by unpredictable natural hazards that cannot be controlled. • Thus unlike industry, agriculture cannot adjust rapidly to changing conditions.

4. Defining Agriculture • Way of life of rural population where production is intimately bound to Consumption • An occupation or profession from which to derive a livelihood • An industry or business employing knowledge of the various sciences for the production of food, feed, fibre and fuel.

5. Defining Agriculture (Cont.) • Can be regarded as purposeful work through which the elements of nature are harnessed to produce plants and animals to meet human needs. Or • A biological production process that depends on the growth and development of selected plants and animals within the local environment

6. Evolution of Agriculture • Naturally plants and animals grow and develop without human influence. • But agriculture has evolved in response to human need for increased food production for a growing population. • People began to exploit the growth of plants and animals in order to produce the type and quantity of food and other products that meet their requirements.

7. Importance Of Agriculture • Provision of food for the ever-increasing population. • Provision of jobs in the agricultural industry as for farmers, crop processors, traders, middlemen and transporters. • Agricultural products are a major source of domestic and international trade, which provides revenue for the Government through taxes. • International export trade in agricultural products provides the producing countries with the foreign exchange they need to pay for essential goods

8. Importance Of Agriculture • Provision of raw materials for the Industries. It is estimated that the ratio of agricultural raw materials to non-agricultural raw materials used in industries is 4:1. • Provision of market for other industries: Agriculture serves as a large consumer market for industrial products such as plastic shoes and boots, buckets, fertilisers, pesticides, agricultural tools and machinery, building and construction materials, bicycles, trucks, lorries, tractors, boats and many others.

9. Importance Of Agriculture • Education and Training: Many agricultural education institutions are established to educate and train people in the science of agriculture. This provides people with a career

10. Agricultural Systems • Two distinct agricultural systems developed in the tropics following the initial domestication. • Systems based on plants and • Systems based on animals.

11. Arable/Plant Based Farming Systems Determined by: • Environmental factors: • Climate • Soil • Natural vegetation • Topography • Socio-economic factors • Customs • Level of technology attained • Population density • Financial resources available • Family and market demand for food and cash crops.

12. Categories of Plant Based Farming Systems • Rain-fed Arable farming Sub-system • Permanent Farming Sub-System Associated with Swamp Rice Production • Mono-culture of perennial crops Subsystem

13. RAIN-FED ARABLE FARMING SUB-SYSTEM Consists of : • Shifting cultivation systems • Semi-permanent cultivation systems • Permanent cultivation systems

14. Shifting Cultivation • Involves leaving land fallow to restore organic matter, improve soil structure and siphon nutrients from the subsoil through the vegetation and leaf fall on the soil. • Land is cleared, debris burned and crops are planted on the ash-enriched soil. • Cropping continues for a period (1-10yrs but usually 2-4yrs) then land is abandoned as fallow under regenerating natural vegetation for some years. • New area is cleared for cultivation.

15. Shifting Cultivation • Usually land is owned communally with control powers vested in a chief exercised on advice of council of elders. • Individuals have permanent user rights so long as they continue to use the land. • Soil fertility maintained by the bush fallow. • No fertilisers or manure are applied: Little or no use is made of animal dung.

16. Types of shifting cultivation • Temporary villages shifting cultivation • Cultivation in the immediate vicinity of their dwellings until crop yields fall to a certain level and then the whole community migrates elsewhere to build a new temporary villages and open up new land.

17. Types of shifting cultivation • Permanent villages or towns with their cultivated and fallow lands covering a large area around the village. • As the productivity of the land in the immediate vicinity of the village or town declines, the distance from the dwelling to the main cultivated area may become considerable. • Temporary huts are built on the “farm” and occupied for periods of days or weeks at a time during the growing season.

18. Semi-permanent cultivation systems • Comprises modified shifting cultivation with addition of some other form of land use on a small part of the holding. • Results when pressure on land restricts the cultivator to a limited area within which to rotate the crop with shortened bush fallows. • Forces the family to become permanently resident on a defined holding and has de facto, if not registered, ownership of this land but may also have user rights in communal grazing land.

19. Semi-permanent cultivation systems • Some use of other means of maintaining fertility to supplement the shortened bush fallow. • In the drier areas, farmers may alternate approximately equal periods of cropping with grass fallows, the latter being grazed by stock. • Cattle and goats are grazed on the fallows and crop residues, as well as uncultivable land, and thus contribute some nutrients to the land in their droppings.

20. Semi-permanent cultivation systems • Small permanent vegetable gardens are maintained around the houses and in limited areas of good soil in the valley bottoms. • Generally under this farming fertility declines to a low level mainly because the short grass fallows are unable to maintain it and little use is made of manure or fertilizers.

21. Permanent Cultivation Systems • Have developed where population pressure has necessitated continuous cropping of virtually all-cultivatable land. • Most farmers cannot afford to use inorganic fertiliser and therefore rely on • Return of crop residues • Green manuring • Use of household refuse and ashes, • Compost • Animal manure and • Other organics such as oil-seed residues to add nutrients and organic matter to the soil.

22. Permanent Cultivation Systems The level at which fertility is maintained depends on: • Extent to which it is practicable or is permissible by custom to employ crop residues, green manuring, and the use of household refuse, ashes, composts, animal manure and other organics and • Energy and skill devoted to the use of the resources.

23. Permanent Cultivation Systems • Due to unfavourable conditions fertility declines considerably. • Better levels of soil fertility can be achieved by very high labour inputs by people with great agricultural knowledge and skill who have made the utmost use of all available means of maintaining fertility

24. Permanent Cultivation Systems • Other methods could include: • Planting various perennial legumes as restorative crops. • Grow annual legumes as green manures, for incorporation in the soil in a rotation with other crops. • Apply well-rotted farmyard manure very shortly before planting the crop. • Use of compost, which is a partially decomposed mixture of household refuse, crop residues, weeds and other waste vegetable material.

25. Permanent Cultivation Systems • Use of other organic manures such as oil-seed cakes • Rotations and mixed cropping. Good rotations usually give better average yields than continuous cultivation of the same crop. Crop mixtures are able to make more efficient use of the environmental resources of light, water and nutrients than same crop in pure stands. • Fertilizer application

26. Swamp-rice Based Systems • Principally include rice fields embracing one or more other enterprises that are either closely integrated with rice production including: • Permanent dry-land annual and perennial crops. • Livestock. • Fish culture

27. Fertility Maintenance • Use of improved rice varieties • Mechanization of land preparation and transplanting to save on labour and increase production per man-hour. • Use of herbicides • Use of fertilizers.

28. Monoculture • Perennial cash crops are often extensively grown by small holders as well as on large company-owned estates. • They make an enormous economic contribution.

29. Monoculture • However their productivity in many of the older plantations has been low because of: • Use low-yielding, unselected seedlings • Erosion due to lack of adequate soil conservation measures. • Low use of fertilizers which failed to produce profitable responses from planting material of low yielding potential. • Poor cultural practices such as transplanting, spacing, pruning and shade management

30. Monoculture • With the use of improved planting materials, coupled with modern cultural methods and exploitation, high productivity levels can be achieved.

31. Livestock Based System • Determined by: • The commodity or commodities for sale • The scale of farming operation. • Fall in two broad categories: • Extensive Livestock production • Intensive Livestock production

32. Extensive Livestock production • Has two categories • Nomadic pastoralism • Ranching • Chief reason for nomadism is the seasonal grazing requirement of the cattle herds and sheep and goats flocks. • Ranching not native to tropics but introduced from Europe and modified to suit tropical conditions.

33. Nomadic Pastoralism • Nomadic Pastoralism undergoing various transitory stages including: • A seasonal grazing system in which wet and dry season grazing lands are separately located each year. • A seasonal grazing system in which the wet and dry season grazing lands are separated but with the wet season grazing area permanently located in one place. • A system involving permanent settlement in the wet season grazing area. • The problem of the dry season is overcome by conservation of herbage and growing fodder crops.

34. Ranching • Most of the ranches in tropical Africa, Asia and Australia are beef ranches, the cattle being generally the Zebu type but increasing numbers of crossbred cattle are being raised on the more progressive ranches.

35. Ranching • Often the commercial alternative to nomadic systems of cattle management. • Most of the land used for ranching is either land of low fertility or land of very low rainfall.

36. Limiting factors • Poor communication • Lack of good local markets • Lack of stratification (all operations such as breeding, rearing and the production of meat or milk are carried out in the same holding). • Marked seasonality in cattle growth and productivity

37. Limiting factors • Low availability of crop by-products, forage crops and concentrate feed to supplement pasture. • Difficulty in giving individual attention to ranch stock • Wild temperament of ranch cattle • Water shortage

38. Intensive Livestock Production • Has three categories: • Small-Scale mixed farming • Medium-scale cattle farming and • Large scale cattle farming. • Small Scale Mixed Farming • Majority of tropical cattle in the world are maintained on a traditional system of small-scale mixed farming or sedentary subsistence agriculture.

39. Small Scale Mixed Farming • Many managerial difficulties have hindered the success of small scale mixed farming been encountered. These include: • Small land holdings leading to reduced field or paddock sizes. • High cost of fencing • Lack of productive cattle breeds • Lack of supplementary and dry-season feeding. • Lack of proper housing for livestock • Traditional milking and calf rearing procedures.

40. Medium-Scale Cattle farming • Comprise a very small proportion of the total number of enterprises in the tropics. • Though in the Temperate Zone the majority of the holdings are small, most of the land is to be found in the relatively small percentage of the very large holdings and medium-scale enterprises

41. Medium-Scale Cattle farming • Under tropical systems • Increased population has led to the subdivision of the large and medium scale farms into small holdings. • The laws of inheritance have often prevented the amalgamation of holdings, so that instead of farm size increasing, it has often decreased as the size of the family has increased. • Foreign controlled estates were appropriated by government at independence and the land reallocated back to peasant farmers, with the consequence of land size drastically reducing

42. Large-scale cattle farming • Proportion of farms falling in this category is small. • Large areas of the tropics are suitable for this form of extensive land use: • However due to population growth the farms have been subdivided.

43. Large-scale cattle farming • At present this potential has relatively not been exploited, since the fertile soils of the tropics have tended to be used for cash crops rather than for grassland production