Recommandations pour une agriculture plus écologique respectant les besoins socio - écono-miques locaux, région du Menabe Central, côte ouest de Madagascar

Abstract

In the Central Menabe region on the west cost of Madagascar, traditional uses of forest resources create an increasingly open landscape. The current annual rate of loss of Malagasy dense dry forest, the natural forest type of the region, is 0.7%. Agriculture represents the principal activity of people in Central Menabe, and the main reason for the decrease in forest cover. In the current difficult socio-economical context (81.3% of the Malagasy population lived under the poverty line in 2010), where a threat to dry forests clearly exists, it is therefore urgent to propose scientifically-sound and participatory recommendations for ecologically sustainable and socio-economically profitable agricultural use of the Central Menabe landscape. The objective of this study is to confirm the hypothesis that a more sustainable form of agriculture - promoting farmers' permanent use of cultivated fields - would generate high value economic products, and contribute to the socio-economic and environmental needs of the region. To meet this objective, the study answers three research questions: (i) What are the principal products of the villager economy? (ii) what is the role of traditional agriculture in deforestation?; and, (iii) what is the potential for, and the expectations of the local populations towards, more sedentary agricultural techniques? The research uses methods from both social (scoring and questionnaires) and natural sciences (inventories and measures of clearings), and was carried out in six villages representative of the Central Menabe region. Two villages mainly practiced rice cultivation, two mainly carried out slash and burn cultivation (of maize, cassava and peanut), and two practiced both slash and burn and rice cultivation. Half of the villages were situated near a national road and have thus an easy access to regional markets; the three other villages were more remote. In total 120 inhabitants were involved in 72 different scoring exercises and 288 participated in a questionnaire survey. Mann-Whitney and chi-square tests were used to test for statistical significance in observed differences. Analyses confirm that rice is the main pillar of the villager economy in the region, and that - at the village scale - this product serves a strong commercial demand which is not always satisfied. Farmers take a weak interest in the consumption of products from slash and burn cultivation (low demand), although the majority of people that cultivate maize, cassava or peanut perceive slash and burn cultivation as a source of alimentary or financial security (subsistence or sale). Given that the deforestation practice has been illegal since 1988, and the strong pressure of international biodiversity conservation organisations, the role of agriculture in deforestation is clearly a sensitive issue, almost a taboo. This study, however, confirms that nearly all slash and burn farmers (97%) clear forest to cultivate, which exceeds the rate of clearing for rice cultivation. As the local population is open to more sedentary agricultural alternatives, four recommendations are proposed: (i) Rice cultivation should be favoured, valorizing irrigation fields which are still not cultivated; (ii) ethnicities who do not cultivate rice can be encouraged to cultivate trees and to use hedges and natural fertilizers. These techniques could favour farmers' settlement on cultivated fields, increasing agricultural yields and providing highly-appreciated commercial products, such as fruits; (iii) new alternatives that could diversify farmers' income, such as fish farming in existing rice fields, should be favoured in order to improve livelihoods; and (iv) the management of cleared forest areas should be set up in a participative way in order to legally satisfy local people's needs and the protection of natural forests.