2014
DOI: 10.1007/s00267-014-0431-7
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Estimating the Consequences of Fire Exclusion for Food Crop Production, Soil Fertility, and Fallow Recovery in Shifting Cultivation Landscapes in the Humid Tropics

Abstract: In the Congo Basin, smallholder farmers practice slash-and-burn shifting cultivation. Yet, deliberate burning might no longer be sustainable under reduced fallow scenarios. We synthesized data from the Forest Margins Benchmark Area (FMBA), comprising 1.54 million hectares (ha), in southern Cameroon and assessed the impact of fire exclusion on yield, labor inputs, soil fertility, ecosystem carbon stocks, and fallow recovery indicators in two common field types (plantain and maize) under both current and reduced… Show more

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Cited by 15 publications
(19 citation statements)
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“…One proposal is to slash the fallow vegetation but leave it unburnt, left to decompose in a slash-and-mulch system (Norgrove and Hauser, 2015) thereby releasing carbon and nutrients into the soil. This sort of practice meets the goal of the French ‘4 per mille, Soils for Food Security and Climate’ initiative involved in the Lima-Paris Action Agenda (Minasny et al ., 2017).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
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“…One proposal is to slash the fallow vegetation but leave it unburnt, left to decompose in a slash-and-mulch system (Norgrove and Hauser, 2015) thereby releasing carbon and nutrients into the soil. This sort of practice meets the goal of the French ‘4 per mille, Soils for Food Security and Climate’ initiative involved in the Lima-Paris Action Agenda (Minasny et al ., 2017).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In forest and forest–savanna interface areas of West Africa, fallow lands are dominated by Chromolaena odorata (L.) King and Robinson (Asteraceae) or Siam weed (Kassi et al , 2017; Koné et al ., 2012; Norgrove and Hauser, 2015), which is reported as one of the most invasive weeds in the world. It colonizes perturbed spaces owing to a high production of wind-dispersed seeds that allows competition with herbaceous and shrub species (Mandal and Joshi, 2014).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The first is the immediate income gain by increased crop yield (Liu et al, 2015) and the second is the negative ecological disturbance and human health degradation over the long run, which far outweighs the first effect (Antle and Pingali, 1994;Pimentel, 1996;Krebs et al, 1999;Tilman et al, 2001;Atreya, 2008;Pingali, 2012). Evidence shows that prevailing agricultural policies have led to this environmental crisis by favoring large farm size, specialized production, crop monocultures and mechanization (MoAD, 2014;Norgrove and Hauser, 2015;Devkota et al, 2020). As a result, assemblages of farm components are broken; nutrient and energy cycles are more open; pest outbreaks often occur; plants become more susceptible to pests; insects develop resistant to pesticides; often small farm-holders are marginalized or pushed out of agriculture (Dhanagare, 1988;Altieri and Nicholls, 2001;Altieri, 2004Altieri, , 2018; and finally, the high chemical input-based agriculture becomes unsustainable (Shiva, 1992;Wilson, 2000;FAO, 2017).…”
Section: The High Input-based Agriculture Is Unsustainablementioning
confidence: 99%
“…These are both native and invasive in Africa such as Imperata cylindrica (MacDonald, 2004); Striga and Orobanche spp. (Parker, 2009), and Chromolaena odorata (Kriticos et al, 2005;Norgrove and Hauser, 2015). These major weed species are already extremely difficult to control under small-scale farmer conditions in Africa and higher temperatures and CO 2 levels in a warming continent could easily exacerbate these chronic problems.…”
Section: Implications For Biotic Stressors and The Sustainability Of mentioning
confidence: 99%