My Thoughts on Planting Popular Cash Crops in Madagascar

My friend Ryan wrote a great post about the Camphor tree-planting fad in Madagascar. He talks about the dangers and rewards of planting an invasive exotic species:

Birds like the fruits and spread the seeds, and the tree is allelopathic, like eucalyptus, meaning that its leaves when they fall are toxic to the seeds of other plants, turning it into a monocrop even if it wasn’t planted as such. In Australia, it not only outcompetes rainforest, it will outcompete native eucalyptus which is the primary food of Koalas (oh the irony). Guess its probably not a good species for integrated agroforestry systems, huh?

It can, however, be a lucrative cash-crop and thats what these forest managment groups are banking on as they struggle to find projects that will provide them the income to pay their forest patrollers and keep their groups running.

You should read the whole piece, as Ryan does a good job looking at the issue from all the sides. I just wanted to add my own thoughts here (as my comment reply to his post got a little long).

I too found Camphor to be the new fad in agroforestry in Madagascar. Ryan touches upon this, but I just want to emphasize the main reason people are planting it (in my experience) is because outsiders (foreign companies, government officials, NGO workers, PCVs) are telling them to plant it. These outsiders talk about how great the tree is and how much money can be made from it, and the local farmers decide they cannot plant anything but camphor! I think there are a few things that need to be considered when talking about planting Camphor trees:

-New trees gain popularity every few years in the development world. For instance, when I first got to Madagascar (in 2008) it was Jatropha which was the popular tree for income-generation and reforestation. This tree, exotic to Madagascar, was supposed to produce massive amounts of oil that could be used as a bio-fuel. But in reality, it needed far more water than originally believed, produced less seeds/oil than originally believed, and also had alleopathic effects on the soil. Check out some of the other negatives here.There have been many other trees promoted by foreign investors and/or aid agencies (as anyone who has read my blog knows), and they go in-and-out of style regularly. So we must be cautious in championing new species.

-Excitement to plant new trees often leads to small farmers giving up their subsistence agriculture to plant entire plantations of the "cash crop." Then, when the market collapses, these farmers are left without food from their farming and without money from their cash crop. Indeed this is true of any cash crop... (more on the market issues below). As Ryan points out, monoculture is a major danger to subsistence farmers (and the surrounding environment).

-The impetus to plant Camphor trees is based on economic gain, but these gains are grossly misrepresented. Those that promote planting these trees usually cite the high prices of Camphor oil and the chances to export to Europe and the United States. But there are two problems with this: 

1) Camphor trees, like all trees, take time to produce. With prices high now, many new plantations are going into production. That means in a few years' time, the market will likely be over-saturated with Camphor. In other words, supply and demand rule. Even if there is still demand, the prices will likely have dropped greatly... I recently read a book about Coffee that noted a cycle in its price: when prices were high, everyone planted more coffee; then a few years later when that coffee matured, the price plummeted; then people gave up planting coffee, so supply decreased, and prices rose again, and... You see where this is going. You also might think we would have learned something from all of this, but as this 2010 article points out in the case of Madagascar Vanilla, the cycle perpetuates (as all cycles do!) - here's the money quote: "Ironically, it was vanilla's inflated prices in 2003, when farmers profited the most from the sweet-smelling spice, which have spelt disaster for Madagascar's vanilla industry." Actually, CNN, there is nothing ironic about it - that's how the market works!

2) exporting from Madagascar is itself a costly and time-consuming process, full of unforeseen headaches, and that is without even factoring in the costs of certifying the product (Ryan does touch on this too).These costs are rarely explained to new farmers, and when they are, often misunderstood.

These are a few of the considerations when presenting new "miracle" trees / crops in developing countries. I actually think most PCVs and NGO workers do consider these issues, and probably explain them to the small farmers. But there is a communication and cultural gap: for instance, many Malagasy see foreign NGO workers, PCVs, and businessmen as experts, and therefore the Malagasy do not believe foreign ideas could have negative consequences. Also, small farmers in Madagascar often listen more to the tone of your words then to the meaning of them, and the excitement these Camphor tree proponents relate in explaining the pros (MoneyMoneyMoney, MONEY!) greatly outweighs the fine print of the cons (offer not valid to all participants, rules and restrictions may apply, ask your doctor about possible side effects, prices may vary).