ABSTRACT
This chapter examines intersections between commodity production and traditional agriculture in one part of West Kalimantan, Indonesia, which has in the past been famous for its agrodiversity. However, with increasing emphasis on large-scale commodity production, the status of such systems is endangered. The commodities concerned are oil palm and rubber, the first being characterised by varied forms of smallholder production under estate control, the latter involving both government-initiated block planting schemes and traditional ‘jungle rubber’. Southeast Asia’s rural areas are now thoroughly embedded in international markets, with commodity production edging out subsistence activities and increasingly mobile households drawing at least part of their income from non-farm sources (Elson 1997; Rigg 2001). Rigg and Nattapoolwat (2001), using case studies from Thailand, have termed this process ‘de-agrarianisation’.
