THE RELEVANCE OF ANIMAL POWER FOR LAND CULTIVATION IN UPLAND AREAS - A CASE-STUDY IN EAST JAVA, INDONESIA

This paper focuses on the relevance of animal power in a farming syste m rather than on the importance of animal power itself. If is hypothes ised that soil and terrain characteristics will be the main factors de termining the relevance of animal power for land cultivation in upland areas. As a case study two different situations are described: one vi llage (Putukrejo) where land use is dominated by annual crops on flat areas with deep soils and one village (Kedungsalam) where agroforestry is becoming increasingly important in an area with steep slopes and s hallow, stony soils. In both villages only a small fraction (14 and 6% , respectively) of the poorer land was cultivated using cattle. The sa me was true for the better land in Kedungsalam (11%). In Putukrejo, ho wever, more than one-third (35%) of the better land was cultivated by cattle. Efficiency of land cultivation on the better land was much hig her in Putukrejo (34 h ha(-1)) than in Kedungsalam (84 h ha(-1)). Ener gy availability does not seem to be a limiting factor in either land u se system. At village level, especially in Kedungsalam, only part of t he energy theoretically available for land cultivation is used. The va lidity of the hypothesis depends on the level at which the data are an alysed. At village level the data endorse the hypothesis. At farm leve l, however, land use rather than soil and terrain characteristics seem s to have a direct influence on the decision whether to use animal pow er for land cultivation or not. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.