The Rubber Workshop was held primarily to help identify priority problems facing the natural rubber industries of Southeast Asia. The focus was on the processes of structural change which had been occurring in the recent past, especially in the two major producing countries, Malaysia and Indonesia. The roles of research, technology, economic trends and policies were examined, with particular emphasis on their implications for the development of the smallholder rubber sectors. Smallholders now produce the bulk of the world's natural rubber whereas the plantation sectors had this distinction less than 25 years ago.
The book highlights proceedings from the Berlin 2008: Agriculture and Development conference held in preparation for the World Development Report 2008.
The first concerted critical examination of the uses and abuses of indigenous knowledge. The contributors focus on a series of interrelated issues in their interrogation of indigenous knowledge and its specific applications within the localised contexts of particular Asian societies and regional cultures. In particular they explore the problems of translation and mistranslation in the local-global transference of traditional practices and representations of resources.
As a result of recent political reforms, Myanmar has the opportunity to enact major policy changes to reinvigorate its agriculture sector. In this context, Myanmar’s rubber sector has the potential to become an even greater source of export earnings and rural household incomes, but there are major challenges related to low rubber productivity and poor rubber quality. Using data from the Mon State Rural Household Survey (MSRHS) conducted from May to June 2015, as well as qualitative data collected from rubber producer focus groups and other interviews with rubber producers, traders, and processors, this paper describes the cost structure of rubber production in Mon State. We then estimate smallholder production costs and the profitability of smallholder rubber production under various alternative yield and price scenarios. The results suggest that if the weaknesses hindering the profitability of the rubber sector are not addressed, the rubber sector will likely stagnate. Moreover, in the absence of a major increase in world prices (substantially above the 2000–2016 average), new rubber investments will not be profitable without major improvements in yield and quality. Further, increasing only yields or only quality, or only improving the institutional environment, will not result in positive returns on investment for smallholders; reforms are needed in all three areas. If these weaknesses are addressed, however, Myanmar’s new investments will be profitable and Myanmar could become an important rubber producer and exporter on the world stage.
The cyclical boom-to-recession nature of the economics of cocoa supply is a major problem for the international cocoa industry - and especially for countries whose economies depend on cocoa exports. Only through an understanding of the dynamics of cocoa cycles can policy decisions be made through the various phases of supply cycles. Based on a major international cocoa conference, this book presents seventeen edited papers from leading experts, making a major contribution to that understanding. It explains the powerful economic, social and political factors which impact on the cocoa economy. It shows the laws of cocoa supply are closely linked to environmental, ecological and institutional factors.
Recent policy reforms and technological innovations in perennial tree crop production have implications for smallholder labour strategies, but changes in these strategies are little understood. Modification in labour decisionmaking among four smallholder communities in Indonesia and Ghana is examined, and the consequences for policy and technology development are explored. The study concludes that there is a need to reassess the way the family is looked at: evidence suggests that the labour strategies are often enacted over a wide geographical area, and form a theme that is hidden by current research techniques used to inform planners and field workers. This publication will be of interest to agencies and individuals concerned with development issues and policy implementation.
