5.3. Farm size and soil quality
It is important to state that there are two main farmer groups in the region: small and large farmers. They live together in the regional landscape. Local soil knowledge is not related to farm size, but the opportunities to use it are farm-size related. Farmers pointed out that soil quality could be changed in time because soil fertility can be manipulated. Potentially, fallowing or rotating rice with soya bean could improve the quality of small farmers’ soils and might raise additional income just as in the case of large farmers. However, small farmers (mainly those who use the pre-germinated rice management system) cannot risk their own sustenance by growing soya bean instead of rice because their low land is likely to flood during the growing season, which is fatal for soya bean. The risk of flooding on the small farms is also related to the water management systems of their neighbours (if these grow rice). Furthermore, agrochemical (such as herbicides) applications by the neighbours can damage their crops. On the other hand, large farmers (who mainly use the conventional and in some cases semi-direct rice production systems), can plant soya bean because they own larger and higher-lying pieces of land, and have better infrastructure for drainage and, therefore, are less vulnerable to weather extremes and are hardly affected by their neighbours’ land management.