Agricultural intensity and its measurement in frontier regions

Agricultural intensification is a process of raising land productivity over time through increases in inputs of one form or another on a per unit area basis. Its study is important for several reasons, many of which relate to agroforestry objectives. However, the concept of intensification often is poorly defined in the literature and existing methods and approaches to measuring agricultural intensity are problematic, making it difficult to precisely compare particular farming systems. This paper examines the concept of agricultural intensity, its relevance to efficient and sustainable land use, and the ways it can be measured. A review of existing approaches and methods for measuring intensity, such as those based on output, cropping frequency, and agrotechnologies, revealed that these feature a number of problems. Some of these problems relate simply to imprecision and inaccuracy. But others are due to the unsuitability of these approaches in the context of farming environments, such as frontiers, which are characterized by limited production data; unconventional cropping cycles; myriad production strategies, cropping patterns, and crop-fallow cycles on a single farm; and a high level of system dynamism and production variability over time. A modified approach to measuring agricultural intensity, based on fieldwork in Petén, Guatemala, is presented. This approach, which is better suited to frontier regions, employs an agricultural intensity index to help evaluate the intensity of particular farm units based on the technologies and practices used by the farmer, and the degree to which they are used.