Productivity through Diversity: Systems Ecology and Agricultural Development in Southeast Asia, 1964–1993

This paper studies an alternative vision of agricultural development in Southeast Asia shaped by systems ecology. Popularized by American ecologists in the 1960s, systems ecology examined the flow of materials and energy within ecosystems, and promoted the “diversity-stability hypothesis” postulating that ecosystems with higher diversity could achieve better stability. By the 1970s, this emphasis on diversity caught the attention of scientists in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines dissatisfied with the “Green Revolution” model of development due to its preoccupation with the breeding of high-yielding staple crops. In response, funding agencies tried to expand the research scope by fostering collaboration between agronomists, ecologists, and anthropologists. This led to the creation of the Southeast Asian Universities Agroecosystem Network (SUAN) in 1982, where scientists exchanged findings in topics such as agroforestry gardens in Java, swidden agriculture in upland Philippines, and multiple cropping systems in Thailand. The SUAN thereby adapted the diversity-stability hypothesis to the conservation of diverse rural environment—from biodiversity to traditional cultivation practices—which they considered crucial to the long-term productivity of agroecosystem. However, this vision failed to alter the dominant development policy in the region that favored large-scale commodity monoculture, and the network was discontinued a decade after its launch. Based on materials at the Rockefeller Archives Center, this paper shows how this vision of productivity through diversity was complicated by Cold War authoritarian regimes in Southeast Asia, especially the technocratic approach to environmental governance in New Order Indonesia, and connects the dilemma to contemporary socio-ecological issues in sustainable development.