Print friendly

Crop

Plant profile (Hevea brasiliensis)
Natural rubber production
Yields
Pests and diseases

Plant profile (Hevea brasiliensis)

Rubber plantations mainly consist of only one species, Hevea brasiliens, a variety of plants of the genus Hevea (Euphorbiaceae family), native to Brazil. Commonly known as the rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis is a tall erect tree with a straight trunk and bark which is usually fairly smooth and grey in colour. The plant, growing up to over 40 meters (m) in the wild, characteristically does not exceed 25 m in height when it is under cultivation. Whereas by nature the rubber tree is a perennial (lasting for over 100 years) plant, it is usually replanted after 25-35 years in plantations, when latex yields tend to decrease to an uneconomic level.

Cultivation of Hevea brasiliensis in Brazil, its native habitat, was severely hindered by blight in the early 20th century. At present, most of the world's natural rubber is produced by rubber trees descended from Hevea seedlings transplanted from South America to South and Southeast Asia.

The rubber tree flourishes in the tropics with annual rainfall of 2,000-4,000 mm evenly spread throughout the year, and temperatures ranging between 24-28°C. Accordingly, the production of natural rubber (NR) is concentrated in a few tropical countries. However, as a result of intensive breeding programmes, rubber tree areas can be found in locations with an annual rainfall of as little as 1,500 mm per year and a dry season of up to 5 months.

The following areas are particularly well suited for Hevea rubber culture: the Amazon basin of Latin America; the Thai-Malay peninsula; Sabah and Sarawak in East Malaysia; Sumatra, Java and Kalimantan in Indonesia; Kerala in India and the South-Western part of Sri Lanka; West-Central Africa (e.g., Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia). There are also some areas suitable for NR production in Southern China and Southern Vietnam.

For more detailed information on the rubber tree, please refer to: the National PLANTS Database of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA, NRCS. 2004. The PLANTS Database, Version 3.5). Also, the reader is referred to the website of the International Rubber Research & Development Board (IRRDB) - and in particular the subsections rubber tree and other sources of rubber.

Area under NR cultivation (thousand hectares) by country,
average 2000-2005

Source: UNCTAD secretariat (Data: FAOSTAT database)

For the world as a whole, the area under rubber plantation has been increasing significantly during 1961-2005 from an estimated level of about 3.9 million hectares (ha) in 1961 to reach over 8 million ha in 2005. However, it should be said that a significant share of the reported rubber area might not be available anymore for latex production. This potential withdrawal is likely to be attributable to various technical, commercial and political reasons, including over-age (a large portions of the mature areas would need replanting), endemic diseases (for example, a large share of the rubber area in Brazil is thought to be afflicted by SALB) and as a result of political instability (Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia).

It should be stressed that Indonesia's share of world total NR planted area is much higher than its share of global production. Indonesia had the largest NR planted area in the world with over 2.67 million hectares in 2005 (comparing with Thailand's 1.68 million hectares). Yet its production in 2005 was 70% of Thai output.

Development of the world NR plantation area (thousand hectares),
1961 - 2005

Source: UNCTAD secretariat (Data: FAOSTAT database)

Figures reveal a decline in the NR planted area for many large producing countries. Malaysia reported a steady decline in rubber acreage, which had fallen from the peak of 1.89 million hectares in 1978 to 1.25 millions in 2003 (1.4 in 2004). A similar situation is true for Sri Lanka (the reported figures show a decline in the planted area from 215,100 ha in 1961 to 114,190 in 2005). In Africa, rubber acreage had declined in Nigeria throughout the decades 1967-1987 (yet the largest area under rubber in Africa in 2005), the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Liberia, mainly as a result of political instability. However, recent changes in Liberia might be a factor leading to the rehabilitation of NR plantation in this country.

The decline in NR planted area for many producing countries is attributable to several reasons. In particular, some estates have converted to more profitable commodities, such as oil palm. Besides, some countries'governments have committed to restraining the extension of new areas (so for replanting) to reduce production levels and as an attempt to sustain prices.

NR plantation area (hectares), 1961 - 2005

Source: UNCTAD secretariat (Data: FAOSTAT database)

Declines in NR planted area in many traditional producing countries were more than offset by some increases in planted area in certain large producers (notably, Indonesia, Thailand, China and India).
In relative terms many smaller producing countries also performed well. The area in Vietnam has more than doubled from an estimated 85,000 ha in 1981 to around 222,000 ha in 1990. A cooperation agreement with the former USSR resulted in extensive planting of new rubber trees. The agreement was suspended following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, but the area continued to grow to reach 510,000 in 2005. In Africa, Cameroon almost quadrupled the 1960 planted area (from 11,000 ha in 1961 to about 45,900 by 2005); Côte d'Ivoire, now the third largest area under rubber in Africa, recorded the most remarkable expansion (up to 74,000 ha in 2005 from 10,406 in the early 1970s) as a result of large rubber production projects. A few newcomers to the industry can also be seen, such as Gabon and Guinea (where production started in the 1990s).

Natural rubber production

NR production

NR production varies among geographic regions and within countries, depending also on the type of holdings (estates or smallholdings).

On large estates, land is cleared mechanically, whereas on most smallholdings land clearing is still done manually. Estates and dynamic smallholdings increasingly rely on modern plantation materials and agricultural practices that maximise crop, while traditional smallholders in remote areas often use unselected planting material and follow conventional planting practices. Rubber trees are cultivated at a density of 360-70 trees per hectare (on estates) and 400-500 trees per hectare (on smallholdings).

Depending on conditions, the rubber tree takes 5-10 years to reach maturity -that is, the stage when tapping can be started (the criterion for this is a specific circumference of the trunk, 50 cm at 1 m height). During wintering (lasting for 4-6 weeks), the leaves of the tree die and fall off, and new leaves are formed. The metabolism of the tree and the latex production are substantially affected. Accordingly, the rubber production fluctuates between months and it is normally low during the rainy season. These seasonal variations are important factors influencing markets.

The production cycle of the rubber tree is long and it offers possibilities for joint production with inter-row crops, which would provide income during immature period (popular intercrops in most countries include rice, groundnuts, soya beans, mung beans, pineapple).

The life-cycle of the rubber tree

Source: UNCTAD secretariat

The standard method of tapping involves cutting the bark of the tree with a knife starting at the highest point convenient to the tapper. The cut is generally slant down from right to the bottom left of the trunk at an angle of about 35°. Each subsequent cut is made after the preceding. Generally, rubber trees are tapped about once every two days (each time yielding about 50 g of latex). When the bark of the tree is tapped, thin slivers of bark are excised; the latex exudes from the wound and drips into a cup. With care, tapping may last for 10-20 years and at time even longer (although the intensive tapping of some smallholders is so deep as to severely affect bark renewal capacity and quality). Trees are often rested for a period after heavy tapped.

Latex has a tendency to deteriorate rapidly and coagulate within a few hours of tapping, but it may be preserved with ammonia to limit bacterial contamination ("latex preservation"). A small quantity of latex dries on the bark and is collected the next morning before tapping ("scrap").

For more detailed information on raw natural rubber and natural rubber production, please refer to the articles listed under the heading "Raw Material" in the relevant section of the Rubber-Stichting site. The reader is also referred to the IRRDB's website (see in particular the subsections on tapping and productivity).

Estates versus smallholders

A major structural change in the NR industry has been the steady decline in estate involvement (as companies switched to less labour-intensive crops such as oil palm) and the increasing importance of the smallholder area.

According to some estimates from the International Rubber Study Group (IRSG), smallholdings (by convention, less than 40 ha) accounted for over 78% of world NR production over the period 1998-2003. The balance of planted are and output was accounted for by rubber estates. Smallholding production edged upward from 5,270 thousands of tonnes in 1998 to 6,310 in 2003 (that is, it grew by an average annual rate of 3%, or about 173 thousands of tonnes). Estate production moved from 1,550 thousands of tonnes in 1998 to 1,670 thousands of tonnes in 2003, or increased by an average annual rate of 1% per cent. It should be noted that the 40 ha threshold is somewhat academic (in most countries the average smallholding size is likely to be 2-3 ha). In addition, statistics on smallhodlings are inevitably less reliable than those available for estates.

Output by estates and smallholders (thousand tonnes), 1998 - 2005

Source: UNCTAD secretariat (Data: International Rubber Study Group)
* Most figures are estimated.

Whereas most Asian production is smallholder based, estates (relatively large, state-owned plantations) still predominate in the former centrally planified economies (China, Vietnam and Cambodia). The new plantations in Latin America and Africa (where development of the rubber industry started with estates) tend to be on small holdings.

NR production is technically and economically viable for both estates and smallholdings. However, there is a technological divergence between smallholder and estate production. Estates capture sizeable economies of scale and vertical integration (as well as some diseconomies -notably, bureaucratic costs, and negative social externalities). They have a serious propension to innovate. By contrast, smallholdings do not enjoy big economies of scale and are in general more conservative. They tend to be less cost sensitive than estates.

Historically, profitability of NR production to smallholders hinged upon a set of technical and structural factors, including the labour-intensive nature of NR production and the availability of low-cost labour, lack of economy in the tapping phase, and supportive social structures. Access to improved planting material is one of the main constraints on smallholdings.

Costs of producing NR

Unlike synthetic rubber, a capital-intensive industry with few workers, the field production of NR is a labour-intensive sector involving millions of farmers (mostly women). The standard method in tapping is for one person to tap between 200-300 trees in 3-4 hours. The same person then collects the tapped latex. Tapping and latex collection are normally carried out by paid labourers (estates) or household work (smallholdings). If land values were omitted, labour would constitute the largest single cost per kg in the field production of natural rubber. Although this cost varies considerably among countries (owing to differentials in wages and yields), it tends to be prominent in all contexts. According to data drawn from private records of production and marketing enterprises, management and labour represented over half total direct expenditure on estates and smallholdings in Malaysia in the early 1990s.

Costs of making NR (field production), early 1990s (cents per kg)