Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 81 2000 137–146
Indicators for sustainable land management based on farmer surveys in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand
Rod D.B. Lefroy
a,∗,1
, Hans-Dieter Bechstedt
a,1
, Mohammad Rais
a,b,1
a
International Board for Soil Research and Management IBSRAM, PO Box 9-109, Jatujak, Bangkok 10900, Thailand
b
National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies NISTADS, CSIR, Dr K.S. Krishnan Road, New Delhi 110012, India
Abstract
The current pressure on land resources necessitates the development of sustainable land management SLM systems. The process of developing such systems requires that methods are available to assess sustainability easily. Indicators of SLM need
to include indicators of soil quality and land quality, but in addition they must take account of the environmental setting and include the more human aspects of land management: the social, economic and political aspects.
Three case studies were undertaken to assess the sustainability of different land management systems practised by farmers on sloping lands of Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Using the framework for evaluating sustainable land management
FESLM, detailed socio-economic and biophysical surveys were undertaken of 53 farms. The surveys aimed to characterise the land management systems, outline their constraints and potentials, and identify indicators and thresholds of sustainability
in line with the five pillars of sustainability in the FESLM: productivity, security, protection, viability, and acceptability.
The data were used to develop a suite of SLM indicators, with associated thresholds. These indicators have been included in a prototype decision support system DSS. Feedback on the indicators was obtained from the farmers after the DSS was
used to evaluate their farming systems. The indicators are highly specific as well as simplified, but they make a useful first step towards the development of a more generic system for evaluating SLM and for more accurate site specific and integrated
evaluation. Evaluation of this structured and systematic approach yielded encouraging results in a separate study in Nepal. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Sustainability assessment; Sustainability indicators; Farm surveys; Southeast Asia; Decision support system
1. Introduction
Currently, there is enormous pressure on the land resources of the world, particularly in developing
countries. These pressures arise from population growth Pinstrup-Andersen and Pandya-Lorch, 1994,
the need to improve on current standards of nutri- tion Borlaug and Dowswell, 1994, and dwindling
∗
Corresponding author. Tel.: +66-2-941-2500; fax: +66-2-561-1230.
E-mail address: lefroyibsram.org R.D.B. Lefroy.
1
www.ibsram.org.
reserves of quality arable land Alexandratos, 1995. The decline in reserves of quality arable land result
from the significant loss of agricultural land through degrading land management practices Scherr and
Yadav, 1996, from competition for these reserves for use in forestry, watershed management, maintenance
of biodiversity, etc., and from the diversion of arable land for urban and industrial use. There is a need
to develop sustainable land management SLM sys- tems, and this requires the development of methods
which can be used by researchers, extension workers, local planners, and progressive farmers, to assess the
sustainability of different land management systems.
0167-880900 – see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 1 6 7 - 8 8 0 9 0 0 0 0 1 8 7 - 0
138 R.D.B. Lefroy et al. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 81 2000 137–146
1.1. Maintaining soil quality or developing sustainable land management systems?
There has been a critical transition from a focus on soil quality, to land quality and finally to SLM. The
maintenance of soil quality is a vital component of the maintenance of land quality, however, defining soil
quality, which is an essential first step to maintaining soil quality, is very complex Carter, 1996, involving
a myriad of physical, chemical, and biological factors. The transition from a focus on soil quality to land
quality involved broadening the criteria to include factors such as climate and cropping system, as there
is much more to land husbandry than soil husbandry. Similarly, although identifying useful land quality
indicators LQIs is requisite for SLM, there is much more to developing SLM systems than maintaining
land quality. An important aspect of the development of SLM is an approach to land management that is
not just concerned with output, but encompasses the need for long term preservation of the resource base
to allow adequate future food production in a manner that is socially acceptable, economically viable and
environmentally sound. The framework for evaluat- ing sustainable land management FESLM Smyth
and Dumanski, 1993 attempts to connect all aspects of land use under investigation with the interacting
conditions of the natural environment, the economy, and socio-cultural and political life. The aim of the
FESLM is to develop a tool for identification of un- sustainable and sustainable systems and which will
produce a structured and interrelated checklist of variables and factors which can be used to systemat-
ically evaluate the sustainability of a wide range of agroecological systems.
The objective of this study was to assess whether such a structured approach to evaluating the sustain-
ability of land management could produce accurate and efficient assessments of the sustainability of farm-
ing systems on sloping lands of Southeast Asia.
1.2. Farmer involvement in developing sustainable land management
The development of LQI and indicators of SLM re- quires major involvement by the farming community.
Firstly, they possess an intimate knowledge of their land and have access to the important temporal com-
ponents of land quality; they can monitor how their system has changed. Secondly, it is the farming com-
munity, the human element, that is the essential step in broadening from land quality to SLM. Thirdly, as
managers of the land, it is the farming community that observes and responds to the various indicators of
SLM.
The concept of sustainability is a dynamic concept in the sense that what is sustainable in one area may not
be in another, and what was considered sustainable at one time may no longer be sustainable today or in the
future because conditions or attitudes have changed. In addition, sustainability varies with the frame of ref-
erence in which it is considered, particularly with re- spect to socio-cultural, economic and political factors.
What one group considers sustainable may not be sus- tainable for another group. The aim is to merge the
knowledge of farmers, extension workers, and scien- tists to gain a broader perspective on the constraints
and potential of land management systems. Due to the different perspectives of these groups, however, it is
possible that consensus is not reached easily, if at all; assessment of sustainability is a compromise based on
negotiation. This process should develop criteria and indicators for evaluating whether land management
and agricultural practices should lead towards or away from sustainability. The complete involvement of the
farming community will ensure the recommendations that arise are realistic, efficient and acceptable for the
end users.
2. Methods for case studies in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand
