In my last two blog posts, post #1 introduced early developments in Papua New Guinea's oil palm industry and then pointing to its significant outcome today in terms of increasing population in the Land Settlement Schemes (LSS) oil palm blocks. Post #2 - "Coping With Overcrowding Under The Palms" - described how farming families responded to this change and other associated socio-economic factors by shifting their patterns of production and livelihood.
These shifting patterns or production strategies have both advantages and disadvantages to the farming families and communities. One advantage (and is more likely the only advantage) is that the new strategies tend to relieve multi-household families from intense pressure when it comes to remunerating harvests and upkeep labour and sharing of oil palm earnings. The disadvantages, however, are diverse and add to further constraints to economic productivity, social stability and disturbances to the surrounding eco-system.
That is, to some extent, they tend to influence unsustainable farming practices, of which some contribute to disturbances of the surrounding natural environment, while others act as further disincentives to proper social and economic development under the palms.
The ISOP Farmer Trainings that I undertook in July till December, 2013, was a very interactive approach for me and my small team. We collected helpful feedback from participants revealing bad choices they made.
This short post will uncover one major environmental issue and associated unsustainable practices with corresponding impact.
These shifting patterns or production strategies have both advantages and disadvantages to the farming families and communities. One advantage (and is more likely the only advantage) is that the new strategies tend to relieve multi-household families from intense pressure when it comes to remunerating harvests and upkeep labour and sharing of oil palm earnings. The disadvantages, however, are diverse and add to further constraints to economic productivity, social stability and disturbances to the surrounding eco-system.
That is, to some extent, they tend to influence unsustainable farming practices, of which some contribute to disturbances of the surrounding natural environment, while others act as further disincentives to proper social and economic development under the palms.
The ISOP Farmer Trainings that I undertook in July till December, 2013, was a very interactive approach for me and my small team. We collected helpful feedback from participants revealing bad choices they made.
This short post will uncover one major environmental issue and associated unsustainable practices with corresponding impact.
