360 Agricultural Revolutions and Change
Methods to assess these objectives, their social and institutional needs, and the
ability of farm households and communities to meet these needs were developed
by the ASB consortium (Tomich et al, 1998a; Vosti et al, 2000) and used to assess
the alternative land uses within and across sites. Key parameters included profita-
bility (measured in terms of economic returns to land and labour), labour and
capital needs for establishing and maintaining land-use systems, the potential con-
tribution of given land-use systems to meet household food security needs, and
market and nonmarket institutional needs of specific land-use systems. Detailed
results of these studies for Brazil, Cameroon and Indonesia are found in Vosti et al
(2001), Gockowski et al (2001) and Tomich et al (2001).
Analysing trade-offs: The ASB matrix
Land use at the humid forest margins is perceived by three general sets of benefici-
aries. The global community is interested in saving tropical forests, increasing car-
bon sequestration, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preserving plant and
animal biodiversity. Small-scale farmers are interested in household food security,
property rights, the profitability of their farms and the institutions that support
their goals. National policy makers occupy intermediate positions and can be the
key actors. In 1996, ASB researchers developed a framework known as the ASB
matrix to help evaluate the local, national and global impacts of the alternative
land-use systems and guide their decisions (Table 15.3; Tomich et al, 1998b).
The evaluation criteria include the environmental, agronomic and socioeco-
nomic impacts, previously described, for each of the land-use options. The matrix
puts together the food and income functions with ecological functions (produc-
tion, human welfare and environmental impacts) of each system, indicating the
potential trade-offs between the perspectives and interests of different stakehold-
ers. This framework is intended for use in selecting from among the land-use
alternatives. The challenge is for the multiple stakeholders to weigh trade-offs
between their varied objectives. The notion of best-bet alternatives was introduced
to indicate the systems that provide the combination of environmental services,
poverty level and economic growth that is most acceptable to society in the pro-
duction (private) and environmental (global) functions. Some advantages and
limitations of the matrix are discussed in Vosti et al (2000) and Tomich et al
(1998b).
The analysis of the resulting trade-off matrix must be done with full participa-
tion of the various stakeholders and is crucial for achieving a common understand-
ing of the different viewpoints, vested interests and potential conflicts associated
with the different choices. An example of the types of trade-offs is that between the
carbon stored in different land-use systems and the private profitability realized
from them. There is no win–win alternative system that combines maximum car-
bon stocks with maximum farmer profitability. There is a lose–lose or worst-bet
alternative: food crops followed by short fallows. But there are two medium-
carbon systems that have high levels of farmer profitability: cacao–fruit tree complex