SE Asia is overgrown with Rubber Trees and Sugar Cane. These crops, destroy soil life with costly chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Rubber Trees and Sugar Cane also make farmers poor and soil poor. Firstly you can not eat Rubber Trees and Sugar Cane. When the price drops for these crops, the cost of fertilizer and pesticides stays the same. This makes farmers reliant on unreliable markets.
AGRI-Forestry – Food Forest
Stage One: Permaculture Research Institute Asia (PRI Asia) recommends a strategy using Agri-Forestry principals. This strategy for Rubber Trees is the placement of coffee trees in between rows. Coffee trees use the shade of the Rubber Tree to begin a new revenue source while still harvesting the Rubber Tree sap. (Provision for watering the coffee trees must be made thru water planing and drought proofing.)
Gradually the low sap Rubber Trees are replaced (over year 2 and 3) with Leucaena and Moringa trees to re-establish Nitrogen in the soil. Dried Moringa leaf made into Moringa powder can be a replacement cash crop.
Stage Two:
Gradual replacement of the low performing Rubber Trees with Fruit Trees (Cherry, Peach, Grapes) (Under research is Blueberry and Strawberry at higher elevations of SE Asia)
Under Research – Avocado Trees – more coming