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Plantation
agriculture is an important form of land-use in the tropics and in many
countries the area under plantation crops has expanded rapidly in the past
decades. For example, in Indonesia the area under oilpalm expanded from
133,000 in 1970 to almost 1.8 million ha by the mid-1990s. In Malaysia the
extent of oil palm increased from about 150,000 ha in the early 1970s to
over 3 million ha at the end of 1998. Plantation agriculture is
contributing to the macro-economies in many tropical countries and
provides much employment. Even in middle-income countries such as Malaysia
total export earnings from oil palm plantations are 6% of the Gross
National Product. In Ivory Coast a group of plantation crops produce 22%
of Gross National Product.
   
Plantation
crops are sometimes referred to as non-CGIAR crops. Despite the importance
of plantation agriculture, long-term effects of plantation cropping on the
soil have received little research attention. No systematic effort has
been undertaken to prove that plantation agriculture is a more sustainable
form of land-use than arable cropping. However, it has been long assumed
that a perennial plant cover protects the soil better than an annual crop,
and it has also been stated that land degradation under perennial crops is
usually less than in arable farming under similar conditions.
I
have conducted soil surveys and soil fertility evaluations in East Africa,
Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. A brief desciption of the various activities can be
found at:
The
research indicated that soil fertility at many plantations in the tropics
is affected by continuous crop cultivation. In October 2003, CABI-ISRIC published my book “Soil fertility decline in
the tropics with case studies on plantations” which is based on my
experiences with plantation agriculture in various parts of the world.
Click on the book for further details:
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