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Best Management Practices for Agricultural Non-Point Sources of Pollution | |
| Caribbean Environment Programme Technical Report #41 1998 | All CEP Technical Reports |
SECTION 5. CASE STUDIES
5.1 The Better Bananas Program—Implementing Pollution Reduction Measures
In 1992, the Rainforest Alliance, an international nonprofit organization that develops and promotes economically viable and socially desirable alternatives for resource management, developed the ECO-O.K. certification program to help reduce the adverse environmental impacts of tropical agriculture. The program develops ways for the growers of crops such as bananas and coffee to do business with minimal damage to natural resources. A component of this project is the Better Bananas program. The goal of the program is to transform banana export production so that its impact on the environment is minimized without sacrificing quality, supply, worker safety, or economic opportunities. To reach this goal, the program awards an "ecological seal of approval" to farms that adhere to a series of standards, which permits the promotion of their produce as having been grown and harvested under conditions of limited environmental impact.
The Problems
As discussed in Section 3.2.1 of this report, there are a variety of environmental issues related to banana production. These include land erosion, misapplication of pesticides and fertilizers, solid waste production and improper waste disposal, and storage and handling of hazardous materials. In some areas, the land needs to be drained for banana production. This can lead to erosion of ditches and canals and excess sediment loading to receiving waters and ultimately near-coastal waters. Pesticides and fertilizers, if applied incorrectly or in overabundance, can run off during rainfall events and wash to receiving waters. Plastic bags used in the banana ripening process are often left on the ground after a harvest. They wash off the plantation and end up in estuaries and on beaches. The recognition of these and other problems has led to the development of low-cost/low-technology options for controlling pollution from banana plantations.
The Solution
The Better Bananas program arose out of a growing environmental awareness in the United States, Canada, and Europe, where consumers have begun to demand more sustainable systems of agricultural production. Certification is awarded based on meeting General Production Standards for socioenvironmental agricultural production (updated August 1997). Appendix D contains the most recent standards for the Better Bananas program. The standards resulted from collaboration among farmers, conservation groups, scientists, and government representatives, and they will be updated periodically as environmental advances, new technologies, and market demand warrant.
The Standards
Standards were developed for six general categories of activities—legislation, natural resource management, crop management, solid and liquid waste management, environmental education, and prevailing social and work conditions. Within these categories, subcategories of activities and resource areas are addressed, such as forested areas, fertilization programs, and equipment management. Goals are established, with criteria (specific activities) for meeting each goal outlined. (See Appendix D.)
Implementation
Currently, 85 banana farmers are participating in the program. For example, Plantera Rio Sixaola, S.A., was the initial farm to participate in the program. Chiquita International implements the program on all of its plantations in Costa Rica and requires, as a contract condition, that all of its independent growers become certified. Other companies participating in the program include Banandex in Colombia (13 farms certified), Chiriqui Land Company in Panama (32 farms certified), and COBAL in Costa Rica (29 farms certified). Activities include planting the ditch and canal banks on the plantation to prevent erosion, educating workers on ecologically sound ways for growing bananas, leaving plant cuttings on the ground instead of removing them from the site, treating wastewater at the banana packing facility, and recycling plastic materials.
Several farms have extensive recycling programs for the plastic bags and twine used on the farms. The recycled plastic is used in a variety of ways, including making "bricks" for walkways throughout the farms to help prevent soil erosion, manufacturing packing materials for shipping bananas overseas, and making fuel pellets for the local cement plant.
For more information, contact the following:
Chris Wille, Director
ECO-O.K. Certification Program
Rainforest Alliance
Apdo. 138-2150, Moravia
San Jose, Costa Rica
011+ (506) 240-9383
infotrop@sol.racsa.co.cr5.2 Plan Sierra—The Benefits of Outreach and Education
Plan Sierra is an area and a program on the north slope of the Cordillera Central where sugar cane and coffee are grown. Plan Sierra was created through a grant from the government of the Dominican Republic in 1979 to address the needs of the rural poor. It is an autonomous civil institution with 400 employees, and it receives an annual appropriation from the Dominican Congress. Its objectives are as follows:
To create a demonstration project for managing upland and mountainous agriculture.
To develop a coordinating mechanism to link existing management institutions to address the problems of the sierra.
To respond in a timely and flexible manner to the needs of small-farm operators.
Plan Sierra has conducted activities in infrastructure development, health, education, and agriculture. Reducing soil erosion is a central focus of the agricultural aspect of the program.
The Problem
The erosion rate in the Dominican Republic is estimated to be 300 ton/hectare/year (133 ton/acre/year). More than half of the topography is mountainous and much of the land has been stripped of trees, which have been harvested for fuel. The creation of Plan Sierra was motivated by a realization that hydroelectric development projects in Haiti were being seriously compromised by rapid sedimentation of reservoirs, a result of the massive deforestation occurring in the mountainous regions.
The Solution
Plan Sierra focuses on a variety of economic activities, including the promotion of ecologically stable open food plots, reforestation and the sustainable management of existing forests, social forestry schemes, and the diffusion of integrated systems of food crops and coffee. Important instruments for its growth and development were the development and involvement of grass-roots organizations, a focus on infrastructure development, experimentation with new technological alternatives for sustainable food plots, creation of credit schemes, subsidized sales of tree seedlings, provision of technical assistance, a food-for-work program for the adoption of soil conservation techniques, and development and use of training programs. Plan Sierra conducts on-site visits to farmers and offers training at the Los Montones demonstration farm.
Acceptance and Accomplishment
In a survey of farmers, all who had adopted the soil conservation measures under Plan Sierra felt that their farms had benefited. Generally, the benefits are in the form of increased crop yields, increased longevity of soil use, improved soil moisture, erosion control, and increased soil fertility. Ninety-five percent of Plan Sierra participants were using soil and water conservation practices, versus 25 percent of nonparticipants. And once adopted, soil and water conservation practices are consistently used by farmers who have participated in the plan.
Training at the Los Montones demonstration farm also has an impact on the number of options a farmer is willing to try and plays an important role in the dissemination of agricultural and conservation innovations. It also forms a stronger bond between the farmers and Plan Sierra. Farmers who receive training at the farm are more likely to use soil and water conservation practices on all of their land holdings rather than just some of their land; to use live barriers; to perceive soil and water conservation practices as beneficial; and to realize that using soil and water conservation practices not only improves productivity, but also controls erosion. Soil conservation practices such as contour plowing and terraces are twice as likely to be used by farmers who have received both on-site visits by Plan Sierra employees and soil conservation training at the Los Montones demonstration farm than by those who received only one of those types of assistance under Plan Sierra.
Another success of the program is that, when faced with questions or problems, farmers involved with Plan Sierra generally turned to it for assistance, implying trust and a willingness to adopt improved measures for soil conservation. More than 50 percent of Plan Sierra participants attribute their knowledge of Plan Sierra to outreach activities, and nearly half of those 50 percent think that onsite visits and training at the Los Montones demonstration farm were the most useful sources of information regarding soil and water conservation practices.
5.3 Technical Improvements to Local Innovations in Haiti
Peasant farmers in Haiti have produced many innovations for annual cropping, including the following:
Zare: soil and stubble formed into mini-catchments to retain water for rice cultivation.
Sakle en woulo: weeds hoed into closely spaced contour ridges prior to planting.
Ramp pay: contour trash barriers covered with soil.
Kleonaj: wattling constructed in ravines to retain sediment for banana, taro, or yam cultivation.
Bit: contour bands for sweet potato cultivation.
With the help of technical assistance, these innovations were improved to increase soil retention.
The Problems
In Haiti, environmental degradation and rural poverty are extreme. Only 32 percent of the land in Haiti is deemed arable, but over 60 percent of the land is under agricultural use. Most hillsides are eroded, and one-third of the land is severely degraded. There are three principal causes of soil erosion and deforestation in the nation:
1. Limited access to production resources, i.e., land and capital
2. Few opportunities for off-farm employment
3. Social and economic insecurity
A breakup of plantations into small, individually owned farms led people to move to more mountainous parts of the country in search of farmland. The average farm in Haiti is too small to provide for a minimal standard of living, and farming is very intensive so as to reap as much harvest as possible for a family. The denuded landscape in the mountainous terrain has led to severe degradation of the land and intensive soil erosion. Soil conservation measures employed by peasant farmers are inadequate or not practiced widely enough to slow the degradation of the land, and they are generally used to retain moisture and increase agricultural production, not to retain soil per se. Soil conservation measures had been introduced by international groups, but these focused on long-term ecological or downstream benefits. They failed to provide a short-term, recognizable incentive for their adoption to the farmer who was being asked to use them.
The Solution
Technical improvements to the existing practices included vegetative techniques such as contour hedgerows, wattling, and gully plugs. For example, ramp pay were improved by placing them along contours and supporting them with planted hedgerows, and kleonaj were improved by planting live stakes and perennials downslope of them. These improved techniques have been widely adopted and are maintained by farmers without external incentives.
Hundreds of kilometers of hedgerows have been planted since their introduction.
Contour hedgerows with Leucaena leucocephala and gully plugs with Pencaena leucocephala are especially popular. Hedgerows serve three purposes:
To support the ramp pay structure and protect the sediment that accumulates behind it and the moisture that it retains.
To reduce labor investments by avoiding the annual reconstruction of the ramp pay after they decay.
To provide livestock forage material during the dry season.
The local innovations for soil retention that were improved by technical assistance require low labor inputs and result in short-term net financial gain to farmers that adopt them. Generally, farmers realize benefits in the same season in which the measures are adopted. Successful adoption of the techniques can also be attributed to the fact that they can be altered or combined to meet the landowner’s specific site conditions and management objectives. Techniques introduced by international groups often require complex designs that must be adhered to in order to function properly. The improved techniques that are now being widely adopted by farmers provide many benefits beyond soil retention—forage for livestock, wood for fuel, and increased agricultural production.
Results
Sediment retention of 50 centimeters in height in a season behind the improved ramp pay is common. One study showed that the improved technique increased production of corn by 51 percent and sorghum by 28 percent in the first year of their use, and by 22 percent and 32 percent, respectively, in the second year. The study also showed that the average amount of soil retained by the improved soil conservation measures was 101 tons per hectare in the first year.
The same study also showed that all types of soil conservation being practiced by the farmers are beneficial. The net returns from a small farm are increased 100 percent with the addition of any soil conservation measure. However, the combination of ramp pay with hedgerows was the most profitable.
Lessons Learned
The direct lessons of the acceptance and benefits of the improved local innovations for soil conservation are as follows:
Acceptable measures combine components that are familiar to peasants (e.g., ramp pay and hedgerows) and compatible with other agricultural and social activities.
Measures need to be simple and require low and non-financial installment costs.
To be adopted, the measures must provide short-term economic returns, usually in the same season as their installation.
Measures need to be adaptable to farmer-specific site conditions, management objectives, and preferences. These factors facilitate a sense of ownership of the measures when the measures are used on an individual farm.
Successful measures are those which can be adopted sequentially, at a pace consistent with the farmer’s acquisition of knowledge and level of comfort with making changes.
Most importantly, erosion control measures in Haiti have been adopted only when they were shown to result in economic gain to a farmer in the short term, not because they save soil. The improved ramp pay with hedgerows were successful because they were a low-cost investment and peasants could quickly determine whether the improvement was worth their time; that is, economic benefits were noticeable in the first season of their use.
Tables, Figures, Acronyms | SECTION 1. | SECTION 2. | SECTION 3. | SECTION 4. | SECTION 5. | SECTION 6. | SECTION 7. | GLOSSARY | REFERENCES CITED | APPENDIX A | APPENDIX B | APPENDIX C | APPENDIX D
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