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The Ifugao agricultural landscapes: Agro-cultural complexes and the intensification debate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2012

Stephen Acabado
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Abstract

Most models that explain the development of agricultural systems suggest evolutionary relationships between extensive (e.g. swidden cultivation) and intensive (e.g. wet-rice cultivation) forms of production. Recent information from highland Southeast Asian farming systems questions the validity of this assumption. As a case in point, this article presents the results of a combined ethnographic study and spatial analysis of the Ifugao agricultural system in the northern Philippines, focusing in particular on the relationships among intensive rice terracing, swidden farming and agroforestry (Ifugao forest management). Informed by the Ifugao example, this article suggests that extensive and intensive systems are often concurrent and compatible components of a broad-spectrum lifeway.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , October 2012 , pp. 500 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2012

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