More than half of the world's population live in urban areas, and a growing proportion of the population live in or around large cities. Livelihoods in the peri-urban interface are severely affected by land use changes and transformation. The nearby urban markets lead to more focus on production of high value, perishable vegetables and fruit, as well as high-priced off-season vegetable production. Small-scale farmers in peri-urban areas try to maximize outputs from small plots of land by overuse of harmful chemicals. However, farmers face a multitude of constraints in the rapidly changing environment of the peri-urban interface and to date, little is known about the knowledge flow between farmers, consumers, and traders. The interlinkage among these actors may play an important role in the dynamics of farming strategies and market development related to peri-urban agriculture.
The purpose of the current study was therefore to ascertain local agro-ecological knowledge on management and production systems applied to reduce pest incidence in small-scale peri-urban vegetable farming systems. The local knowledge of stakeholders on vegetable farming practices, food quality and food safety, trader-consumer-farmer interlinkages in the peri-urban interface, as well as health and environmental impact of the current and alternative farming practices have been identified.
A group of conventional and pesticide-free farmers in a village in the peri-urban interface was compared regarding knowledge on management and production systems applied to reduce pest incidence in vegetable farming systems. Furthermore, consumers and traders at different markets in Chiang Mai were interviewed regarding knowledge on vegetable farming practices, food quality and food safety, and health and environ-mental impact of the current and alternative farming practices. The software system ?Agroecological Knowledge Toolkit (AKT5)? was used to create knowledge bases for the three stakeholder groups of farmers, traders and consumers.
Results indicated that knowledge played an important role in trader-consumer-farmer interlinkages in the peri-urban interface. It was found that conventional and pesticide-free farmers in small-scale vegetable farming systems in the peri-urban interface developed different strategies due to (a) different constraints in conventional and pesticide-free management regarding pest and weed incidence; (b) diverse marketing strategies; (c) differences in preferences of wholesalers and consumers. Whereas conventional farmers tended to diversify their income through off-farm labour to sustain their livelihoods, pesticide-free farmers tended to become fully depend on vegetable farming due to increased workload in pesticide-free farming. However, conventional farmers seemed to face constraints such as high dependencies on wholesaler requirements and high production risks due to fluctuating market prices.
Pesticide-free vegetables seem to have a potential for providing an alternative income for small-scale farmers in the peri-urban area of Chiang Mai. Increased support through government subsidies and incentive programs, as well as knowledge based training by the Agricultural Extension in IPM and marketing, may enable farmers to get involved in pesticide-free farming on a long term basis. An improved marketing strategy, increased ownership, crops diversification and more experience in pesticide-free farming could enable farmers to minimise production risks and to produce ?100% safe? vegetables for the urban markets of Chiang Mai.
