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Indigenous farmers’ perceptions of problems in the rice field agroecosystems in the upper Baram, Malaysia

BACKGROUND: Rice field agroecosystems produce food for more than half of the world’s population and deliver important services supporting farmers’ livelihoods. However, traditional rice field agroecosystems are facing a variety of problems, including pests or markets that are hard to access. This re...

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Autores principales: Hollaus, Alexander, Schunko, Christoph, Weisshaidinger, Rainer, Bala, Poline, Vogl, Christian R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8962147/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35351170
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13002-022-00511-1
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author Hollaus, Alexander
Schunko, Christoph
Weisshaidinger, Rainer
Bala, Poline
Vogl, Christian R.
author_facet Hollaus, Alexander
Schunko, Christoph
Weisshaidinger, Rainer
Bala, Poline
Vogl, Christian R.
author_sort Hollaus, Alexander
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Rice field agroecosystems produce food for more than half of the world’s population and deliver important services supporting farmers’ livelihoods. However, traditional rice field agroecosystems are facing a variety of problems, including pests or markets that are hard to access. This research explored indigenous farmers’ perceptions of the problems, their causes and consequences, and the solutions applied to address them in the rice field agroecosystem. Furthermore, the study investigated how indigenous farmers related these problems to the surrounding landscape elements and to microzones in the fields. METHODS: Data were collected in two villages in the upper Baram, Sarawak using a qualitative approach that included sketch drawings and face-to-face interviews. Forty-three indigenous farmers of the Kenyah, Penan and Sa’ban ethnic groups were interviewed in their rice fields. The sketch drawings were used to identify the perceived landscape elements, while the oral interviews were employed to identify perceived microzones. Furthermore, the interviews elicited the perceived problems in the rice field agroecosystem and their relations to landscape elements and microzones. RESULTS: The findings identified a total of nine environmental problems, e.g. animal disturbance, six social problems, e.g. difficult to access farm inputs, and eight agricultural technology system problems, e.g. poor soil quality, with some found to be rooted in complex causes and affecting agricultural productivity. While some problems were perceived at field level, microzones were frequently used as sub-field indicators of the problems. The surrounding landscape elements were perceived as both a source of the problems and as a means of avoiding them. To solve the problems, farmers applied preventive and reactive strategies based on traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge, resulting in a hybridisation of knowledge systems. CONCLUSIONS: By including environmental, social, agricultural technology system problems and different spatial scales, this research contributes to addressing issues that can be overlooked when focusing on only one dimension of the problems. These results contribute to a better understanding of how indigenous farmers perceive, cope with and adapt to problems in rice field agroecosystems, which is important for landscape management. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13002-022-00511-1.
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spelling pubmed-89621472022-03-30 Indigenous farmers’ perceptions of problems in the rice field agroecosystems in the upper Baram, Malaysia Hollaus, Alexander Schunko, Christoph Weisshaidinger, Rainer Bala, Poline Vogl, Christian R. J Ethnobiol Ethnomed Research BACKGROUND: Rice field agroecosystems produce food for more than half of the world’s population and deliver important services supporting farmers’ livelihoods. However, traditional rice field agroecosystems are facing a variety of problems, including pests or markets that are hard to access. This research explored indigenous farmers’ perceptions of the problems, their causes and consequences, and the solutions applied to address them in the rice field agroecosystem. Furthermore, the study investigated how indigenous farmers related these problems to the surrounding landscape elements and to microzones in the fields. METHODS: Data were collected in two villages in the upper Baram, Sarawak using a qualitative approach that included sketch drawings and face-to-face interviews. Forty-three indigenous farmers of the Kenyah, Penan and Sa’ban ethnic groups were interviewed in their rice fields. The sketch drawings were used to identify the perceived landscape elements, while the oral interviews were employed to identify perceived microzones. Furthermore, the interviews elicited the perceived problems in the rice field agroecosystem and their relations to landscape elements and microzones. RESULTS: The findings identified a total of nine environmental problems, e.g. animal disturbance, six social problems, e.g. difficult to access farm inputs, and eight agricultural technology system problems, e.g. poor soil quality, with some found to be rooted in complex causes and affecting agricultural productivity. While some problems were perceived at field level, microzones were frequently used as sub-field indicators of the problems. The surrounding landscape elements were perceived as both a source of the problems and as a means of avoiding them. To solve the problems, farmers applied preventive and reactive strategies based on traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge, resulting in a hybridisation of knowledge systems. CONCLUSIONS: By including environmental, social, agricultural technology system problems and different spatial scales, this research contributes to addressing issues that can be overlooked when focusing on only one dimension of the problems. These results contribute to a better understanding of how indigenous farmers perceive, cope with and adapt to problems in rice field agroecosystems, which is important for landscape management. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13002-022-00511-1. BioMed Central 2022-03-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8962147/ /pubmed/35351170 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13002-022-00511-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Hollaus, Alexander
Schunko, Christoph
Weisshaidinger, Rainer
Bala, Poline
Vogl, Christian R.
Indigenous farmers’ perceptions of problems in the rice field agroecosystems in the upper Baram, Malaysia
title Indigenous farmers’ perceptions of problems in the rice field agroecosystems in the upper Baram, Malaysia
title_full Indigenous farmers’ perceptions of problems in the rice field agroecosystems in the upper Baram, Malaysia
title_fullStr Indigenous farmers’ perceptions of problems in the rice field agroecosystems in the upper Baram, Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed Indigenous farmers’ perceptions of problems in the rice field agroecosystems in the upper Baram, Malaysia
title_short Indigenous farmers’ perceptions of problems in the rice field agroecosystems in the upper Baram, Malaysia
title_sort indigenous farmers’ perceptions of problems in the rice field agroecosystems in the upper baram, malaysia
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8962147/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35351170
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13002-022-00511-1
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