Agriculture and Environment: Cassava

Better Management Practices: Reduce Habitat Conversion

The most effective way to reduce the habitat conversion associated with both cassava production in marginal areas and with slash and burn cultivation (where agricultural plots are cleared from forests or secondary growth and planted to food crops and then abandoned for a period of time to allow the soil to rejuvenate) is to increase the fallow cycle time for poor farmers and to plant leguminous trees or other plants that will more actively rejuvenate the soils.

Sufficiently long fallow cycles
When land is relatively abundant compared to overall population in many parts of the world, the fallow cycle for shifting cultivation is often 10-15 years or even more.

In many parts of the world where more people now depend on less land for agriculture, the fallow cycle maybe as little as 3-7. Such rapid reuse of often relatively marginal areas does not give them sufficient time to rebuild fertility. Over time, shorter fallow cycles deteriorate soil productivity.

Increasing productive life of land
Cassava can be harvested for up to three years after planting; it is a crop that extends the productive life of agricultural land into the fallow cycle. Cassava, like fruit trees and other perennials, provides a crop on agricultural lands long after annual crops have been harvested.

Such plants not only extend the productive life of otherwise abandoned agricultural plots during their fallow cycle, they attract insects and animals which are important sources of protein for the rural poor (Clay 1988).

For farmers that plant cassava the strategy should be to increase soil productivity during fallow periods through planting strategies that increase biomass and nutrient production during both production periods as well as fallows.