1). Unfortunately, however, most countries where tree commodity crops are widely cultivated do not provide data on the proportion of production by smallholders compared to large-scale growers,

so measuring the benefits received by the former group is not straightforward. One country that does provide this information is Indonesia, where in 2011 small farms Selleckchem Pifithrin �� were estimated to contribute 42%, 96%, 85%, 94% and 46% of the country’s production area for palm oil, coffee, rubber, cocoa and tea, respectively (Government of Indonesia, 2013). Other illustrative data reported on a commodity-by-commodity basis also show how important small-scale tree crop production is in tropical nations: approximately 30% of oil palm-planted land in Malaysia is managed by smallholders (Basiron, 2007), while more than 65% of all coffee produced worldwide comes from small farms (ICO, 2013). The equivalent figure for cocoa is 90% (ICCO, 2013), while more than 75% of all natural rubber produced between Selleck Raf inhibitor the years 1998 and 2003 was estimated to come from land holdings

smaller than 40 hectares (INFOCOMM, 2013). Again, around 75% and 50% of tea grown in Sri Lanka and Kenya, respectively, is considered to come from small farms (INFOCOMM, 2013). The above data suggest that much of the revenues from cultivating these commodities accrue to small-scale farmers. Returning to the example of Indonesia, for example, a rough calculation can be made based on estimated production volumes (Government of Indonesia, 2013) and FAOSTAT-reported producer price data. Here, in 2011, the total farm-gate value to the country’s smallholders for palm oil, cocoa and coffee must have amounted to more than two billion, 1.5 billion and one billion USD, respectively, based on our calculations. Data illustrating the significant revenues received by smallholders from growing tree commodities indicate

the magnitude of the challenge in managing commodities sustainably in the context of the potentially deleterious ecological Reverse transcriptase impacts of their production on agricultural and forest landscapes (Section 4.3). The main tree commodity crops have all been subject to formal breeding, although the efforts involved have often been ad hoc based on the availability of germplasm to the breeders involved ( Mohan Jain and Priyadarshan, 2009). Partly, ad hoc approaches reflect the fact that the main centres of production of tree commodities are spread across the tropics and are often outside their native ranges (see Fig. 1 for the five examples discussed in Section 4.1; UNCTAD, 2011).