Empirical evidence indicates that the role of secondary crops is consistent with the above criteria and gives substantial support for sustainable agricultural development. Secondary crop-based agribusiness development will contribute to the stabilization of household food security by promoting crop diversification, improving and fulfilling nutritional requirements, absorbing farm labour and generating farm household income. In addition, secondary crops will play a role in maintaining diverse and environmentally friendly farming systems, functioning as a source of raw material for the food and feed industries, and stimulating rural economic growth. In particular these benefits will apply to farmers with limited or marginal land. Two examples, one from Indonesia and one from India, demonstrate how secondary crops support sustainable agricultural development.

Indonesia has conducted various projects on sustainable farming systems that have investigated annual cropping patterns. A review by Rusastra et al. (2004) indicated the cropping patterns involving secondary crops gave substantial improvements to food production and farmer income. However, policy support encouraging adoption of the necessary technology is limited and therefore has a weak influence on agricultural diversification at the micro and regional levels. Adoption of the optimal cropping patterns requires an improvement in the following areas: (a) accessibility of secondary or horticultural crop seeds; (b) special credit provision to cover higher production costs for agricultural diversification programmes; (c) application of labour-saving technology for land preparation, planting and weeding; (d) co-ordinated management of irrigation water availability for secondary or horticultural crops; and (e) extension services that particularly relate to new on-farm technology for rice (rainfed and minimum tillage) and non-rice commodities.

Sustainable agriculture has also been a focus of community-based watershed development in projects in Bhipur, India. Here, new technology has been introduced for water conservation across the watershed, leading to more sustainable crop and fodder production (Cecoedecon's NGO, 2006). Water conservation increased crop yields. Technology for improving soil fertility and boosting productivity included green manuring, mulching, composting, using farmyard manure, and crop rotation of green-gram and mustard. Green-gram is a legume that fixes nitrogen in the soil and improves the soil fertility. As it takes only 2.5 months to mature, farmers can plant a crop of drought-resistant mustard that uses the remaining moisture in the soil. Both of these crops need little water and have a ready market.

The impact of these projects are: (a) yields of the main crops (wheat, mustard and millet) have risen; (b) enough fodder for the animals, and enough soil moisture to support a crop even during low-rainfall years; (c) overall prosperity in the village has increased as indicated by an increase in employment opportunities and consequent reduction in the migration rate; and (d) an increase in village food availability - the village has improved food production, met its own needs and improved the villagers' purchasing power.

A CAPSA study called "Identification of Pulling Factors for Enhancing the Sustainable Development of Diverse Agriculture in Selected Asian Countries (AGRIDIV) " (Sugino et al., 2006) noted the importance of secondary crops in agriculture and rural development. The study proposed strategic policy and development actions that contribute to poverty alleviation through secondary crop-based agricultural diversification. These strategies are: (a) strengthen technology development for secondary crops; (b) promote contract farming, which provides benefits both to producers and consumers; (c) construct small-scale irrigation and storage facilities and provide farmers with market information; (d) credit schemes should focus on resource-poor farmers; (e) develop small-scale processing facilities; and (f) because the marginal productivity of input factors is relatively high, the relevance of input subsidy schemes should be considered.

More effective policy support will be achieved by supporting the role of farmers' groups and associations. This will solve small farmers' problems such as accessibility to technology, capital, management practices, and their bargaining position in the input and output markets. Finally, the rights of land ownership and use should be secured in order to motivate the farmers to invest in their own land.

Written by I Wayan Rusastra, Programme Leader of R&D, UNESCAP-CAPSA, Bogor, Indoneisa

(References available upon request)