The role of nontimber tree products in household food procurement

Agroforestry Systems 32:99-117, 1995. 9 1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

The role of nontimber tree products in household food procurement strategies: profile of a Sri Lankan village C. M. C A R O N Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, New Haven, CT 06511, USA (Currently at the John M. Musser Memorial Forest and Society Fellow, Institute of Current Worm Affairs, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, USA)

Key words: edible plants, adaption, protected area, homegarden Abstract. Reliance on nontimber forest products from homegardens and forests in a Sri Lankan village is presented. Land and tree tenure in this village adjacent to the Sinharaja Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Reserve have shifted dramatically because of changing priorities in forest management recently shifting from~utilization toward complete forest protection. Local residents must adapt to a new set of social circumstances. Household demographics, access to land, and income from nontimber forest products (NTFPs) and external employment are examined as pertinent to household food acquisition. Linear correlations show significant associations between income generated from the sale of agricultural produce and nontimber forest products and the amount of money allocated to food purchases. Fifty-five edible plant species were found in homegardens. Four forest tree species provide food regularly. Case studies are essential in increasing the natural resource manager's awareness about the role of agroforestry in protected areas management and his or her understnading of promoting protection without compromising subsistence needs.

Introduction A forest designated as a protected area often imposes constraints on nearby residents. Food procurement activities such as shifting cultivation and collection of nontimber forest products (NTFPs) and edible plants within protected areas are often restricted. With the exception of purchasable kitul palm (Caryota urens L.) tapping privileges, villagers living adjacent to the Sinharaja Man and the Biosphere (MAB) reserve in Sri Lanka may no longer legally procure NTFPs from or practice shifting agriculture within the forest. Machlis (1992) states "The management of protected areas in necessarily the management of p e o p l e . . . " and that the social sciences have an essential role to play in protected areas management [Machlis, 1993]. When the protected area manager asks "What might happen?", there must be a body of knowledge, i.e., case studies, that the manager can refer to [Machlis, 1993]. This paper investigates adaption of innovation. By taking an anthropological and an ethnobotanical approach to protected areas management, this study attempts to answer a what might happen type of question. The question addressed is, "With the range and the habitat of Sinharaja's local population restricted under protected area management, how have residents adapted their food procurement strategies to abide by the rules governing the protected

100 area?" This study's assumption was that the forest conservation initiative would cause residents to rely more on the market to meet basic needs (e.g. food) thereby reducing pressure on the forest. The goal of this paper is threefold (1) to analyze the role of income from nontimber forest products and agricultural cash crops in food procurement in the households of Pitikele, a Sinharaja village, (2) to emphasize the direct and indirect role that homegardens play in food procurement, and (3) to discuss the variables affecting household food expenditure and the cultivation of food species within the individual homegarden. Food procurement depends on the interaction of socially-contingent variables. These variables economic, political and environmental in nature include market availability, food prices, food stamps, income to purchase food, secure tenure to land and trees, and favorable climate conditions. Due to the dynamic nature of laws governing the use of Sinharaja, food procurement strategies in Pitikele can only be understood within the historical context of forest usufruct rights and land tenure in the region of the Sinharaja MAB.

Study site history Sinharaja (translated as 'Forest of the Lion King') is a testament to changing land ownership and forest reserve management goals. In 1875 Sinharaja was declared a state-owned forest reserve. Despite this designation, there are historical records to account for limited legal use rights granted to the local Sinhalese population by Sinhalese kings to collect forest products and practice shifting cultivation, locally known as chena cultivation, to increase food production [Tambiah, 1968]. Today, acts committed within a reserve that are punishable by fines or imprisonment include collecting forest products, tree cutting or burning, clearing forest for cultivation, including shifting cultivation, and erecting buildings [Tisseverasinghe, 1954; Balasingham, 1929]. After 1910, the government strictly enforced a law that no new paddy land could be asweddumised (the clearing and bunding process to convert land into paddy land). Several villages south of Sinharaja moved into the interior of the forest where the soils and topography did not accommodate paddy cultivation. According to Sri Lankan law this occupation was illegal [Tisseverasinghe, 1954, 1956; Moore, 1985; Obeyesekere, 1967]. Residents placed their own claims on the forest and its resources surviving by trading jaggery, honey and toddy, an alcoholic beverage from kitul palm tapping [Moore, 1985]. Sinharaja remained a forest reserve until the mid-1960's when the state's objective for Sinharaja and forest resources nation-wide was aimed towards preservation rather than production. This orientation led to an overwhelming reliance on forest product imports and untapped potential among the nation's forest resources [FAO, 1969]. The early 1960's found Sri Lanka restructuring its forest policy to increase forest production and to develop extractive forest industries. Sinharaja was open for logging from 1969-1977.

101 Logging was unsuccessful in Sinharaja. Its rough terrain and steep topography posed severe constraints for mechanical harvesting. Harvesting operations were abandoned by 1977 leaving over 1400 hectares of forest logged [McDermott, 1986]. Successful lobbying by university researchers and national non-governmental organizations brought attention to the unique ecological characteristics of Sinharaja. Sinharaja has been managed as a biosphere reserve since 1978 remaining the least logged stand in the lowland wet zone of Sri Lanka. The Sinharaja Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Reserve is a humid evergreen dipterocarp rain forest located at latitude 6~ ' N and longitude 80~ ' E (see Fig. 1). Influenced by northern and southern trade winds, the region receives between 3,000-5,100 mm of rainfall from two annual monsoons [Ishwaran and Erdelen, 1990]. Wet lowland rain forests like Sinharaja make up about nine percent of the island's total land mass [de Zoysa et al., 1991]. Species richness in this 11,000 hectare reserve that lies between the Rakwana and Central Massifs makes Sinharaja a biological treasure. Its species composition is high not only for flora (Dipterocarpaceae endemism reaches nearly 90%) but also for a wide range of wildlife. Butterflies, fish, mammals and 95% of the forest-dwelling birds are endemic to the forest [Ishwaran and Erdelen, 1990]. A planted buffer zone of Caribbean pine (Pinus caribaea) is found along the north and northwestern zones of the forest. The southern edge of the reserve is nondemarcated. There are approximately 50 villages adjacent to or partially within the buffer zone [McDermott, 1985].

Land tenure - chena and paddy cultivation

As noted above, practicing shifting agriculture within Sri Lankan forests has a long recognized history [Balasingham, 1929; Tisseverasinghe, 1956; Obeyesekere, 1967; Tambiah, 1940]. Shifting agriculture plots, called chenas, are formerly forested areas, cleared by fire, for the cultivation of unirrigated rice and other agricultural crops. Since families near Sinharaja had access to lowlying paddy fields, they did not plant grains in chena plots. Only seasonal vegetable crops, not monocrops of woody perennials such as rubber, tea or coconut, were grown in chenas. Vegetable produce provided the ingredients for the side dishes taken daily with rice throughout the year. Woody perennials were grown in village land and in homegradens. Due to the institutionalization of the Sinharaja MAB and the restrictions on chena cultivation (now more regularly enforced with the protected area status bestowed upon the area), on the slopes of Sinharaja where the villagers once planted these vegetable crops in chenas, a pine plantation now stands. Several old chena plots still exist outside the reserve. These cannot be cultivated because a persistent fern (Dicranopteris linearis) chokes all planted or naturally regenerating species. In the rice planting tradition, cultivators follow two forms of land tenure;

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intermediate zone, WZ = wet zone. Approximate extent of Sinharaja group of forests encircled (based on Tambiah [1968]). Black areas = relatively undisturbed primary forest, checked areas = selectively logged and/or disturbed forests. (Reproduced with permission from Ishwaran and Erdelen [1990]). tattumaru and kattimaru [Gold, 1977]. Tattumaru is, "an arrangement by which c o - o w n e r s agree for consideration o f c o n v e n i e n c e to possess the entirely of the corpus in turns, instead of each taking his proportionate share of each crop" [Gold, 1977: 63]. Under tattumaru ['tattu' m e a n i n g ' p l o t ' and ' m a r u ' meaning ' e x c h a n g e ' from Obeyesekere, 1967, 1974] one individual in a group

103 of owners has usufruct rights to an entire plot for a whole year or season leaving the other owners with no use rights during that time. With five coowners, each in turn has cultivating rights to that field once every five years. If rotation is done by rice cropping season (Sri Lanka has two) each co-owner cultivates more frequently for a shorter period of time. Under kattimaru ('katti' meaning subsection), co-owners rotate the right to use an equivalent number of plots amongst themselves every season [Tisseverasinghe, 1956; Tambiah, 1940; Gold, 1977]. Co-owners increase their chances of cultivation depending on the number of plots and their own number. There is no upland dry rice cultivation in Pitikele. Tattumaru and kattimaru agreements exist in lowlying paddy fields where co-owners are relatives.

Case village I conducted this study in the village of Pitikele ('outside the jungle'), located along the northwestern border, and contained within the buffer zone of the reserve. The village has a circular settlement pattem. Houses and their gardens, containing the agricultural cash crops, tea, cinnamon and rubber trees, are located on steep slopes looking over the villagers' paddy fields in the village's center. Pitikele's 19 households are home to 72 people. Family size ranges between one and eight members. Single females head three of the households (female headed household; FHHs). The average landholding size which includes homegarden, paddy field and tea gardens separate from the homegarden is two and one-half acres. As shown in Table 3 the actual amount of land under cultivation can be much smaller. Rice is the only cereal crop cultivated. Ten of the 19 households have cultivating rights to paddy land in both cropping seasons. Within homegardens, families may plant rows of rubber trees intermixed with a variety of flowering and fruit trees, tuberous crops and climbing vines. Tea gardens, consecutive rows of knee-high tea bushes shaded by Gliricidia sepium, are found both along the edges of these homegardens, or in areas separate from the garden, but still near the home. Tea has only been planted in Pitikele within the past seven years. Recently have villagers begun to clear more forest area within the village to establish additional small-holdings. Average area cultivated in tea is 0.6 acres. The average amount of land in rubber cultivation is 0.75 acres. Villagers utilize three primary production zones: the Sinharaja Forest, homegardens and paddy fields. From Sinharaja villagers collect a variety of foodstuffs illegally with the exception of kitul palm tapping that is legal with a permit. Within homegardens villagers plant the cash crops tea and rubber and will protect all kitul palm trees and saplings for tapping in the future. For many families homegardens fill the void for greens and vegetables created by chena restrictions. Production from paddy fields is more variable than from the other two production zones due to the complicated tenure system that regulates paddy cultivation. Family relations usually uncles, brothers and sons

104 from separate households are all co-owners to paddy fields. Fields are divided and cultivation rights rotate between the co-owners. Due to the number of fields and the number of co-owners during any one cultivating season one or more co-owners will not have cultivation rights. The primary income generating activities are plucking tea and tapping rubber and the kitul palm (Caryota urens L.). The sap from the kitul palm, when boiled, is reduced to a solidified brown sugar, called jaggery. A few families plant cinnamon as a cash crop. Spices such as pepper and cloves and betel nut (Areca catechu) are sometimes sold. Throughout the year women, with the help of older children, and occasionally their husbands, pluck tea three to four times a week. Once a week, the Tea Smallholders Association sends a lorry to a central location and collects the bagged leaves and buds. Throughout the year, men daily tap the flower of the kitul palm. A "good" flower will produce sap for three to four months. Men tap between one and three palms at a time. Middlemen come to Pitikele once a month to purchase jaggery. Rubber is not tapped during the rainy season from the end of May through the middle of August. During the remainder of the year, women cut away thin layers of rubber bark at least 25 days of the month. Trees are tapped every morning. The latex is collected and processed into sheets at the end of each day. There is one permanent cinnamon peeler in the village. He peels his one acre of cinnamon before taking on that of others. The normal practice for cinnamon growers, who do not know how to peel, is to sell their source to a peeler, and evenly split the earnings with him. Local off-farm employment includes occasional daily labor for the Forestry Department and the State Timber Corporation. Opportunities to reap the benefits of the reserve's tourism are limited to the few houses and shops located near the Forest Department Base Camp in Kudawa. Tourism is restricted to nationals, who come for day hikes, and to foreigners who overnight for early morning bird-watching expeditions. For the latter, a knowledge of English is required. Three of the four men engaged permanently in off-farm employment live outside the village. One partially paved road leading into Sinharaja connects with public transportation six kilometers away. Villagers do not have any form of transportation and normally walk this route once a week to do their weekly shopping for food and household supplies at Kalawanna market.

Methodology I collected data using participant observation, an ethnographic technique, between July and November 1992. Data was gathered during 117 individual observations with durations of 4.5 to 6.5 hours. I recorded all food species eaten within the household for each meal and snack including the area of procurement. When I did not participate in food gathering or shopping myself, I asked the individual responsible for food collection which edible plants were

105 collected and where from. Each homegarden was inventoried to identify food species. Samples of unknown or difficult to identify species were collected and verified by botanists at the Peradeniya Botanical Garden. A total of 32 individual interviews, one with the adult male and female of each household present accounted for demographic, income, and food expenditure data. Income generated from tea was copied from each household's tea smallholder association log book. Income from jaggery and rubber production was given by the individual responsible for the sale from recall and recorded during the interview. After discussions on seasonal production and units of these items, a yearly income figure was extrapolated for the entire year. Income derived from daily labor is accurate and taken from remittances and daily wage labor. Requesting this information at the end of my fieldwork considering rapport establishment with the community increases the data reliability. All linear correlations were performed on SYSTAT Version 5.0.

Results and discussion

Sinharaja forest production zone: collection of NTFPs Edible NTFPs from Sinharaja are gathered by men and children (Table 1). During this four month study, I never entered the forest to collect products with a female informant. I have no direct observation of women collecting any forest products from the forest. However, I often observed men and children emerging from the buffer zone with products that grow seasonally within the protected area. Nuts of Trichadenia zeylanica ('thollol') are shelled, boiled and consumed with shredded coconut and chilis. Fruits from Shorea megistoplyhe and S. distica ('beraliya') are used to make a snack called helapa with kitul syrup and coconut. This mixture is stuffed and steamed within a folded Macaranga peltata ('kenda') leaf and left to harden. Macaranga, a

Table 1. Food species procured from the Sinharaja Forest and their role in the village economy. Sinhala name

Scientific name

Family

Main use

Beraliya

Shorea megistoplyhe Ashton Thw. S. distica Ashton Thw.

Dipterocarpaceae

Subsistence - edible fruit

Dipterocarpaceae


Hal

Vateria copallifera

Dipterocarpaceae


Kiml

Caryota urens

Palmae

Subsistence & marketed sugar is boiled into a solidified sugar called jaggery

Thollol

Trichadenia zeylanica

Flacourtioceae

Subsistence - edible nut

Note: A variety of mushrooms are also collected during the monsoon season.

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108 pioneer species, grows both in and around Sinharaja. Helapa is stored within and eaten directly from the leaf. The carbohydrate rich endocarp of the hal fruit (Vateria copallifera) is ground into a flour-like substance and is used as a rice substitute and in making snacks. Mushrooms, a delicacy commanding high prices in urban markets, are collected along trails inside and outside of the forest. The only NTFP activity legally allowed in Sinharaja is the tapping of kitul palm trees for the production of jaggery. The Forest Department sells renewable permits to local farmers at an annual rate of Rs. 25. Tapping kitul palm within the reserve without a permit is illegal and punishable by fines, however tappers claim that forest officers are rarely encountered in the forest to check for valid permits.

Role of homegarden production zones Families in Pitikele have always cultivated a variety of fruit trees and edible plants in their homegardens. Now with restrictions on forest use and on chena cultivation, these gardens play a more important role in food procurement. They still fulfill a traditional subsistence role, but as discussed above have added a new market-oriented role as tea and rubber small-holdings. Fifty-five edible plant species were found in homegardens (Table 2). Not one of these species is found ubiquitously. Fruits, leafy greens, flowers and pods from trees and vegetables, gourds, roots and starches and ground cover crops are cultivated in and gathered from gardens. The availability and sharing of seed sources and knowledge, land and labor all factor into the abundance of edible species in an individual garden. Between 29% and 50% of the species found cultivated in homegardens are edible. Only one household has a garden abundant with beans and several varieties of squashes. This family has permanent rights to paddy land and have converted a corner of it into a vegetable garden. All but one family, a femaleheaded household, plant chili peppers. Over one-half of the households in Pitikele grow winged bean. Two families cultivate only winged beans. This bean is one of the most widely consumed locally grown vegetables. Both the pod and seeds are consumed. While studies of winged bean use in Sri Lanka find most people not consuming mature pods or seeds [Axelson et al., 1982], in my experience such discrimination was not evident. The only pods discarded were those beginning to rot. In the Axelson et al. study [Axelson, 1982] informants distinguished each part of the plant as a separate food source. I did not observe consumption of the leaves or the tuberous root. Like winged bean Sesbania grandiflora is a nitrogen fixing plant high in protein. Thirteen of the nineteen households have these trees present in their gardens and protect young seedlings. Its leaves consumed raw are an important green vegetable. Pods and flowers are made into a side dish to accompany rice or fried with dried fish. Mangoes (Mangifera indica) and papayas

109

(Carica papaya) are fruits eaten when both mature and immature. Both are curried when unripe. These trees are not cultivated per se but sprout around households from discarded seeds. There are three varieties of breadfruit (ratudel, katudel and kalladel) growing around and within the Sinharaja reserve. The varieties originate from crosses of the indigenous species, Artocarpus nobilis and the introduced species, A. altilis. As a starchy fruit, breadfruit is frequently substituted for rice. With the texture of a potato, in preparation it is often cubed and boiled. Another relative of the breadfruit is jakfruit (A. heterophyllus). Jakfruit is eaten ripe as a sweet sticky fruit and cooked as a side dish when both ripe and unripe. The chestnut-shaped seeds are often boiled or roasted for a snack. As a rice substitute one mature jukfruit is equivalent to 1 to 1.5 kg of rice [Wickramasinghe, 1991 ]. Household food consumption varies. Most families eat twice a day. In the morning leftovers are reheated. Some families have only one curry, an accompanying vegetable side-dish, with rice or breadfruit while others may select between two or three different curries at both lunch and dinner. The poorest households subsist on gotukola (Centella asiatica) and rice. Gotukola is a leaf growing as a ground cover beneath tea bushes and in paddy fields. Vegetables that are commonly grown are beans, gourds and squashes, chili and pumpkin. Paddy field production zone As only three of the nineteen families are self-sufficient in rice, this zone inadequately fulfills its role in household food production. Families in Pitikele still abide by the traditional share-holders systems. The final column of Table 3 elucidates the effects that the tattumaru and kattimaru tenurial arrangements have had on Pitikele's farmers. Of the nine farmers having cultivation rights every year, five of these farmers have rights to fields less than 3/4 acre in size. The remaining farmers have limited or no access to paddy fields. With each generation paddy fields may be further subdivided to distribute among additional family members. The tragedy of subdivision arises when the plots become too small to rationalize their cultivation. When the British forbade the expansion of villages in the 1800's and paddy land at the beginning of this century, paddy land was subdivided in its customary manner until the inheritance system could no longer sustain itself [Tambiah, 1940]. Generations inherited smaller and smaller shares. Shares became so small that in some cases siblings could not even justify cultivating them. Upon reaching this threshold, the production zone surrenders its importance and the cultivator forgoes the potential harvest. Subdivision of paddy fields is one of many factors effecting food procurement discussed below.

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Factors affecting food procurement (production) Income derived from sale of agricultural cash crops and NTFPs The most lucrative and regular income generating activities in Pitikele are jaggery production, tea and rubber tapping, and cinnamon peeling. A variety of nontimber forest products, rambuttan (Nephelium lappaceum), doomala resin (Shorea sp.), chili peppers, cloves, pepper, bananas and areca nut (whole or husked) are sold in small quantities periodically throughout the year. Figure 2 below illustrates the importance of annual income from jaggery and agricultural crops (rubber, tea, cinnamon and other from Table 3) in the total annual income of this natural-resource based economy. Jaggery has a high unit price - Rs. 60/kg. This is 6 times the unit price of tea and 2.5 times the unit price of rubber. While cinnamon has the highest unit price - Rs. 100/kg, it is cultivated by only a few families who must evenly split the profits with the peeler. There is only a slight correlation between income generated from agricultural cash crops and a family's total landholding (R 2 = 0.29) (Table 4). An individual landholding consists of homegarden, paddy land, and any additional family lands outside the home compound. The amount of land within the homegarden that is allocated to particular land uses shows a more concrete correlation. A larger proportion of homegarden land meets subsistence needs. Tea plucking occurs year round. Income derived form plucking tea and tea gardens display the greatest correlation (R -- 0.76 and 0.56, respectively) between the individual agricultural cash crops and their yearly income generation combined. Female and male labor are equally important in contributing to the overall household income. (R 2 = 0.83 and 0.82, respectively). Rubber tapping and tea plucking, traditionally women's jobs, have lower unit prices than jaggery. Yet, while kitul palm tapping is a male activity, the processing of the sap

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P e e s

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3O0,O00.O0 200,000.00. 1O0,000.00. 0.O0

Total annual income

Income - jaggery

Income - cash crops

Fig. 2. Total annual village income and importance of jaggery and cash crops (reproduced with permission from Ishawaran and Erdelen [1990]).

113 Table 4. Linear correlations against significant socio-economic characteristics (N = 19), level of significance," dependent variable in italics.

F-ratio

P-valuea

R2

Total annual income (includes wage labor, jaggery and agricultural crops) (Y) Land cultivated in tea Number of adult males per household Income generated by males Income generated by females Total landholding

22.1 26 79 88.5 14.0

0.003*** 0.0001"*** 0.0001"*** 0.0001"*** 0.003***

0.56 0.61 0.82 0.83 0.41

Income generated from agricultural Crops Income generated by males Income generated by females Total landholding Land cultivated in tea Income generated from tea

6.25 12.7 6.8 21.44 56.1

0.02* 0.002** 0.02* 0.0001"*** 0.0001"***

0.26 0.42 0.29 0.55 0.76

Edible species found in homegardens (Y) Income generated from wage labor as a % of total annual income Number of adult females per household

7.2 7

0.016" 0.016"

0.30 0.29

Annual food expenditure (Y) Members > age 8 per household Total annual income

7.04 7.08

0.01"* 0.01"*

0.25 0.25

0.001"** 0.04** 0.02** 0.04**

0.46 0.32 0.25 0.17

Food expenditure as a percent of total annual income (Y) Total annual income Total landholding Size of homegarden Amount of paddy land

16.58 8.3 5.8 4.6

Level of significance, * > 0.05; ** > 0.01; *** > 0.001 and **** > 0.0001.

into j a g g e r y is a f e m a l e activity. G i v e n this, it a p p e a r s that w o m e n p a r t i c i p a t e in m a n y m o r e i n c o m e g e n e r a t i n g a c t i v i t i e s than m e n . It is the i n d i v i d u a l unit p r i c e o f j a g g e r y a n d the p r o p o r t i o n o f total h o u s e h o l d i n c o m e d e r i v e d f r o m its sale that c o n s t i t u t e s the e q u a l i t y in c o n t r i b u t i o n . A l l c o r r e l a t i o n s c o n d u c t e d b e t w e e n h o u s e h o l d c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s a n d the n u m b e r o f e d i b l e p l a n t s f o u n d w i t h i n e a c h h o m e g a r d e n are i n s i g n i f i c a n t . The correlations b e t w e e n the n u m b e r o f e d i b l e h o m e g a r d e n s p e c i e s and the n u m b e r o f a d u l t f e m a l e s (R: = 0.29) and the p e r c e n t a g e o f y e a r l y i n c o m e d e r i v e d f r o m w a g e l a b o r (R 2 -- 0.30) e x h i b i t the s t r o n g e s t c o r r e l a t i o n s . (Table 4). In a d d i t i o n to b e i n g the p r i m a r y h o m e g a r d e n c u l t i v a t o r s , w o m e n stop to p r o t e c t and tend to c r o p s w h e n t h e y p a s s t h r o u g h g a r d e n s o n their w a y to p l u c k tea and tap r u b b e r trees. T h e r e is no direct correlation b e t w e e n a h o u s e h o l d ' s total i n c o m e , p e r c a p i t a f o o d e x p e n d i t u r e , o r the p e r c e n t a g e o f i n c o m e a l l o c a t e d to f o o d p u r c h a s e s a n d the n u m b e r o f e d i b l e p l a n t s c u l t i v a t e d . T h e m a j o r i t y o f h o u s e h o l d s w i t h a l o w n u m b e r o f e d i b l e p l a n t s in their

114 homegardens (ranging between 29-35%) are (1) families who rely almost entirely on their husbands wage income and (2) households that are femaleheaded (FHHs). Several women rely primarily on their husband's income and do not engage tea cultivation or rubber tapping despite the fact that they have available land. They are more estranged from agricultural production, both at the subsistence level (reflected in a lower proportion of edible plants) and market-oriented (reflected in their lack of participation in tea and rubber cultivation); than those women who husbands stay at home and tap kitul palm. Women in female-headed houses (FHH) cultivate proportionally smaller shares of tea and rubber and take time from these activities to supplement their earnings with limited wage labor. Families that do not rely on wage earnings mix agricultural cash crops with jaggery production and tend to have more edible plants in their gardens. For women who engage in daily wage labor (HP9 and HP14 in Table 3), external employment reduces the amount of time available to tend to homegardens. Women who have secure and regular incomes from their husband's salaried positions (HP5, HP15, HP19) do not seem as concerned about subsistence food production. This may prove that the cultivation and protection of edible plants in homegardens are influenced by external employment opportunities, and that edible plant cultivation is highly dependent on individual preferences. The current possibility to grow cash crops to compensate for lack of cultivated food depends on the assertiveness of the individual to clear land outside the buffer zone area and establish tea and rubber plantations. In the future as available land becomes scare or if market prices for cash crops crash, this personal initiative will carry the additional risk of encroaching land within the protected area. While there is little evidence of encroachment by Pitikele's villagers, encroachment is a serious problem on the southern side of the biosphere reserve. There is little chance of increasing the land available for paddy cultivation.

Factors affecting food purchase Every household must purchase vegetables from the Saturday market in Kalawanna (a weekly day long trip). Vegetables that are commonly purchased are okra, onions, tomatoes, pumpkin, carrots, potatoes, eggplant, and squashes. The percentage of disposable income that families spend on food ranges between 11% and 228% 1 and is highly dependent on income and human resources. Total yearly income shows a significant correlation (R 2 = 0.46; p > 0.001) with the percentage of yearly income spent on food. Families with higher incomes can afford to spend more of it on processed goods, like bread and tinned fish. Families spending the greatest percent of their income on food are those households that are female-headed or rely substantially on wage labor. Families with no access or limited access to paddy in terms of extent and

115 frequency spend a proportionally high percentage of their disposable income on food. The families suffering the most are those that are female-headed. First, many women lose their cultivation rights with their husbands' deaths. Even if they could rely on the labor of a male relative, there is no land to cultivate. Second, most female-headed households suffer from labor shortage. Women are often elderly or disabled and dependent on one or two adolescent children who work for low daily wages on tea plantations and forgo cultivating vegetable crops at home. Human resources play an important role in food purchasing (Table 4). The correlation ( R 2 = 0 . 2 5 ) between the number of household members over the age of eight and food expenditure is logical based on the assumption that they continue more food than toddlers and younger children. Perhaps due to the small sample size, there is no correlation between per capita food expenditure and yearly food expenditure. Increases in household food expenditure is strongly correlated to monthly rice purchasing ( R 2 --- 0 . 8 5 ) . Only three of the 19 households are self-sufficient in rice. As noted in Table 3, families spending the greatest amount of their income on food have no rights to paddy land or rights to shares within a cycle of once every four or six years. While size of paddy land shows almost no correlation to food expenditure as a percent of yearly income (R2 -- 0.17), this is probably due to the infrequency in cultivation a result of rotating rights to paddy land, the variable size of paddy land due to fragmentation, and to the study's small sample size. Most paddy fields range in size from 0.25 acre to one acre leaving families to purchase rice even during periods of cultivation.

Conclusion

Chena cultivation, customary among Sinhalese farmers for subsistence food production and sale, is no longer allowed within Sinharaja forest or within its buffer zone. Thus this study shows how one local community has adjusted to a disturbance in their normal livelihood strategies. Resources and land once available, are no longer accessible, due to the establishment of a protected area. It suggests that forest conservation initiatives often shift the supply of basic needs from the forest to the market. Local residents are relying on food purchases to feed themselves and their families. Some families rely solely on the income generated from NTFP's and on their homegardens to accommodate more agricultural cash crops. Other families mix daily wage labor with cash crop production. Families with salaried jobs rely primarily on this income source. While this reduces" overall pressure on the forest reserve, it intensifies the pressure on a specific reserve resource, the kitul palm and homegardens. The income provided by the sale of jaggery and cash crops, like cinnamon, tea and rubber is indispensable in feeding the family. The results of these

116 analyses exhibit a strong case for income from cash crops, land and tree tenure in food procurement. External employment opportunities affect the cultivation of homegarden species and agricultural cash crops. Families are not food self-sufficient. The majority of the families in Pitikele spend more than half of their monthly income on food. Without rights to land to plant cash crops income generating opportunities are limited. Urban jobs are scare. Local marketing infrastructure for handicrafts and produce like mushrooms is nonexistent. The Forest Department recognizes the importance of kitul palm tapping. With the purchase of a yearly permit, farmers enjoy kitul tapping privileges within the Sinharaja MAB. Without rights to these trees, families would have substantially smaller, or in some cases, no income. Changes in forest policy affect agrarian economies. This study shows that agroforestry systems can play an important role in forest protection by shifting the dependency for food and income from the forest onto homegardens and cash crop cultivation. With the Sinharaja protection program, food procurement in Pitikele depends on usufruct rights to land and trees, directly for food production, and indirectly for the money generated from NTFP and cash crop sales. As families continue to clear land for fuelwood and to expand tea cultivation, Pitikele's population will continue to rely on the market for their daily sustenance, but may encounter new challenges with respect to energy and sustainable land-use practices. Underlying the scope for developing both food production and nontimber forest product procurement is secure and certain rights to land and trees.

Acknowledgements This study was made possible with funds from the Tropical Resources Institute of Yale University and the Rockefeller Foundation through the Harvard Institute for International Development. I am indebted to Dr P. Abeygunawardena and Drs I. A. U. N. and C. V. S. Gunatilleke of the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka for advice and logistical coordination. Dr Nancy Lee Peluso and two anonymous reviewers gave numerous insightful comments on an earlier draft. Thanks are due to Karim Hoechegger of the University of Vienna, Austrai and her student assistants from the Botany Department, University of Peradeniya for cataloguing, assisting with homegarden species identification and translation during household interviews. Mr P. B. Karunaratne in Colombo reviewed the final species list. My sincere thanks are extended to Dr Mark S. Ashton for his generous support during this project's duration and for comments on earlier drafts.

117

Note 1. Borrowing money from relatives, which often remains unpaid or is later repaid through labor and/or favors, explains the phenomena of spending more money than is available from disposable income.

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