Family agricultural-swine-forestry production in the Spanish American Humid Tropic
A form of shifting agriculture is practiced in almost all of the Spanish American humid tropic. With increasing demographic pressure and with the demand for higher incomes, the relation of crop years to fallow years is narrowing; this leads to an alarming acceleration of soil deterioration and the invasion of weeds and pests and a critical reduction of yields, precisely when needs are greater. In the Ecuadorian Amazon, experiments are being carried out to intensify swine raising in the open field, using the following perennial species in an integrated system of vertically stratified production: Desmodium ovalifolium, Canna edulis, Musa acuminata x M. balbisiana ABB (orito), Inga edulis and Guilielma gasipaes. Conventional agriculture is initially practiced in a new plot each year: clearing of the plot and production of short-cycle species in conformity with one or another classic system of multiple cropping. Perennial species of the future vertically stratified systems are introduced in the course of the short-cycle crops. A family unit of ten hectares is divided into 8 plots to be used after farm crops for baby pigs, meat-type hogs and reproductive sows. Also 8 plots (0.2 ha each) are farmed to be used after homestead orchard crops for lactating sows.
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | biblioteca |
| Published: |
Turrialba (Costa Rica)
1979
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| Subjects: | SISTEMAS SILVOPASTORILES, PORCINOS, TROPICOS HUMEDOS, AMERICA LATINA, |
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