Taiwan’s indigenous regions are rich in biodiversity and cultural heritage, and their agricultural systems embody productive, ecological, and cultural values. In response to the challenges posed by climate change, population aging, and cultural erosion, Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture has implemented a program to regain indigenous vitality since 2022. This initiative integrates germplasm conservation and re-cultivation, talent cultivation, ecofriendly farming, value-added industry, and ecological governance to link indigenous agricultural production with environmental conservation efforts. The program facilitates institutional innovation in indigenous agricultural practices. Since its inception, the program has strengthened local germplasm preservation through technological research and development, established 66 participatory conservation sites in collaboration with indigenous
The agricultural sector is facing substantial transformation driven by the combined pressures of climate variability, resource degradation, and unstable markets. Addressing these challenges requires solutions that are technologically advanced yet firmly grounded in real-world contexts. Integrating modern tools with traditional knowledge provides opportunities to enhance productivity, safeguard ecosystems, and secure the long-term stability of food supplies. Drawing on two contrasting Malaysian rice-sector case studies namely a precision-agriculture intervention and the persistence of traditional Iban rice cultivation, this paper develops a case-based conceptual framework for evaluating when agricultural innovation is adopted and sustained. This paper reflects on how innovation in farming can be aligned with broader sustainability goals by bringing together technological, ecological, and
Agricultural communities worldwide face compounding pressures of soil degradation, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and volatile commodity prices. These stresses disproportionately impact smallholder farmers, who produce one third of the world's food (FAO, 2021), yet most resilience interventions operate within single domains, either ecological, financial, or social, without integrating all three or addressing the behavioral incentives that drive farmer decision-making. This paper examines Social Capital Credits (SoCCs), a community currency developed by Social Capital Initiatives (SCI) to incentivize climate-smart, gender-inclusive, and ecologically restorative agricultural practices. Farmers earn SoCCs for verifiable actions such as adopting water-smart cultivation, reducing chemical inputs, planting trees or community knowledge-sharing etc., and redeeming them for seeds, tools,
Mountain villages in Tokushima, Shikoku, Japan—designated as a GIAHS site in 2018—sustain life on unstable, landslide-prone slopes through dense constellations of human and non-human actions. Drawing on ethnography, landscape reading, and historical materials, this paper traces how everyday small-scale interventions interact with geology, infrastructure, and markets to produce landscapes over time. This article shows how centuries of tobacco cultivation and the state monopoly system linked isolated mountain hamlets to national revenue structures and plantation-like modes of production; how post-1950s landslide-prevention projects, materials, and demographic aging reconfigured soil and water practices; and how folk notions such as zareru (surface collapse) and jigurui (ground shift) organize vigilant, iterative maintenance in a terrain assumed to be constantly moving. These practices
Shan tea represents an important indigenous tea genetic resource in Vietnam, valued for its adaptability, high productivity, and superior leaf quality. It is predominantly distributed in high-altitude mountainous regions, where many ancient tea trees have developed under natural forest ecosystems for several centuries. Traditional cultivation practices, characterized by low external inputs and minimal use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, support high-quality tea production while helping conserve biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. However, conserving and developing Shan tea in the high mountain areas of Northern Vietnam still faces several limitations, particularly in the naturally distributed Shan tea areas. Issues such as improper harvesting methods, inadequate care leading to poor growth and low yield, spontaneous and fragmented production, and a lack of coordination among
Promoting Sustainable Resource Management and Inclusive Rural Development
10th issue
Trends of Indigenous Agricultural Development in Taiwan: From “Regaining Indigenous Vitality” to Ecological Sustainability
Between Tradition and Technology: A Comparative Framework for Context-Sensitive Agricultural Innovation in Malaysian Rice Systems
Building Ecological, Social and Financial Resilience of Agricultural Communities Using SoCCs
Conserving a Precarious Agrarian Landscape Dynamic Conservation beyond Output Statistics at the Nishi-Awa GIAHS Site, Japan
Solutions for Conservation and Development of Shan Tea in the High Mountain Regions of Northern Vietnam