Vanilla on coffee farms

Vanilla was introduced in 1979 in Kepahiang, a subdistrict of the Rejang Lebong district in the Bengkulu province, one of the three provinces of Southern Sumatra. It was abandoned in 1997. Although the subdistrict was dominated by native people from Bengkulu, Balinese migrant families from Suro Bali village were the first adopters of vanilla and remained the main adopters until the 1990s, planting the creeper either as a monocrop next to coffee or intercropped with it. This chapter looks at the role of migrants in innovation and technology transfer and at the rapid abandonment of a promising innovation. What led to this innovation cycle of adoption and abandonment? Adoption of vanilla enables us to explore a basic role of extension services in accelerating the adoption rate of an innovation launched by one smallholder. It also allows us to see what happens when extension workers do not anticipate new problems. In addition, we describe a showcase of accelerated consumption of forest and new-crop rents, which is related to the decision to abandon an innovation in the context of an attempt at diversification and agroforestry. The first step in this process was adoption of vanilla in an already established coffee farming system. The coffee was shaded by Gliricidia, a strategy that certainly falls in the category of agroforestry, The vanilla creepers used the Gliricidia trees as stakes. What are the factors determining adoption or nonadoption of agroforestry practices? Did agroforestry systems affect the adoption and abandonment of vanilla?

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Ruf, François, Yoddang, Syarifuddin, A.
Format:	book_section biblioteca
Language:	eng
Published:	World Bank
Subjects:	E16 - Économie de la production,
Online Access:	http://agritrop.cirad.fr/520111/
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