5.4. Socio-economic aspects of soil quality
So as also shown by Scoones and Toulmin [40], socio-economic issues are key driving forces of day-to-day and long-term decisions about specific practices, such as rice–soya bean rotation, irrigation, the use of inorganic fertilizer, the rice varieties and the machines to prepare the soil. This can be illustrated by the following farmer's statement: “We already know our lands very well … we do not have surprises after all … we know that sometimes we are doing something wrong but it is not because we do not have knowledge, it is because we do not have economic resources to do the right thing.” (Ederaldo Dumer).
This statement shows the reality of the regional farmers. Indeed, farmers know what would be the best way to treat their land sustainably, but they do not have the resources to manage the soil properly. Therefore, implementation of measures leading to sustainability is impaired. This is crucial in the situation of small farmers who practice the pre-germinated production system, and who see that the adoption of better agricultural practices is out of reach. It should be stressed that what appears to be unsustainable management for the scientist (the conventional production system) in fact is a system that leads to a natural recovery of soil quality during a longer fallow period or by applying a rotation with soya bean. But this is affordable only to the large farms.
This result is in contrast with some other local soil knowledge studies, such as on farms in Central Honduras, where Ericksen and Ardón [19] found that the farmers prefer, as a primary solution, to apply more inorganic fertilizer instead of using a soya bean rotation or fallowing to recuperate soil quality.