Traditional home garden system in the Chao Phraya basin, Thailand: Ecological nationalities
1997
Jiragorn Gajaseni | Nantana Gajasen | Muang Koktung (Chulalongkorn Univ., Bangkok (Thailand). Faculty of Science. Dept. of Biology)
Ecosystems with diverse structure and composition are the realistic norm of the tropics. Assertions from this study are that the traditional home garden systems are the minics of natural ecosystems in the vicinity of tropical forests. The structural architecture, composition diversity, and nutrient cycles are imitated. The systems sustain daily basic life necessities to substitute gathering of natural products. Even though home gardens need human management, such management is based on a deep understanding of nature. The environment results in controlled and balanced regulations, close to that of natural ecosystem prototypes. The home gardens have some constancy in time which likely to develop positive feedback relationships between the associated species and between the subsystems which facilitate the stability and continuity of funcions. Therefore, the long-term home garden system may become more stable as microenvironments are stabilized, integrated nutrient cycles are established, and soil resources reach stable equilibrium. The home garden system is one of the systems which refect the immense wisdom of the cultures associated with home garden systems. The home garden system has resisted and survived production systems from "work to feed" to " work to sell". There is resistance against modern agricultural methods, as they are not sustainable and will create problems. The traditional home garden system along with the supportive ecological evidence from this study, might be the most appropriate model for low input, high efficiency, and optimization between structure and functions during agroecosystem management.
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