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Agroforestry a Boon for Agriculture & Forestry

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Agroforestry a Boon for Agriculture & Forestry FARM FORESTRY Agro-forestry Dr. Salil K. Tewari Professor Agro-forestry Project Dept. of Genetics and Plant Breeding College of Agriculture G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology Pantnagar – 263145 (14-1- 2008) CONTENTS Introduction History of Agroforestry in India Traditional Agroforestry Systems in India Agroforestry in Recent Past Scope of Agroforestry Features of Agroforestry Significance of Agroforestry Benefits of Agroforestry Classification of Agroforestry System Tree-Crop Interactions Forest Farming Limitations of Agroforestry Agroforestry Extension Keywords 1 Introduction Trees play an important role in ecosystem in all terrestrials and provide a range of products and services to rural and urban people. As natural vegetation is cut for agriculture and other types of development, the benefits that trees provide are best sustained by integrating trees into agricultural system — a practice known as agroforestry. Farmers have practiced agroforestry since ancient times. Agroforestry focuses on the wide range of trees grown on farms and other rural areas. Among these are fertilizer trees for land regeneration, soil health Fig.1:Rice intercropped with salix and food security; fruit trees for nutrition; fodder trees for livestock; timber and energy trees for shelter and fuel wood; medicinal trees to cure diseases and trees for minor products viz. gums, resins or latex products. Many of these trees are multipurpose, providing a range of benefits. According to the 2001 report of the Forest Survey of India, the forest cover in the country is 675,538 sq.km, constituting 20.55% of its total geographical area. Out of this, dense forest constitutes 2.68% and open forest 7.87%. The forest cover in the hilly districts is only 38.34% compared with the desired 66% area. The National Agriculture Policy (2000) emphasized the role of agroforestry for efficient nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation, organic matter addition and for improving drainage and underlining the need for diversification by promoting integrated and holistic development of rainfed areas on watershed basis through involvement of community to augment biomass production through agroforestry and farm forestry. The Task Force on Greening India for Livelihood Security and Sustainable Development of Planning Commission (2001) has also recommended that for sustainable agriculture, agroforestry may he introduced over an area of 14 million ha out of 46 m ha irrigated areas that are degrading due to soil erosion, water-logging and salinization. For integrated and holistic development of rainfed areas, agroforestry is to be practiced over an area of 14 million ha out of 96 m ha. This all will, besides ensuring ecological and economic development provides livelihood support to about 350 million people. The practice of agroforestry can help in achieving these targets. Therefore in the quest of optimizing productivity, the multi tier system came into existence. Gap of demand and supply of forest produce in India is widening and forests are unable to fulfill the demand. Agroforestry can play an important role in filling this gap and conservation of natural resources. Table 1: Demand and supply of different tree produce in India 2000 Timber (m.m3) Fuel Industrial Green Dry MOEF (m.tones) wood fodder fodder (m.tonnes) (m.tonnes) Demand 64 201 28 593 178 Forest 12 17 Supply Farm forest 31 98 12 145 482 total 43 115 Deficit 21 86 16 448 304 The origin of agroforestry practices, i.e. growing trees with food crops and grasses, is believed to have been during Vedic era (Ancient period, 1000 BC) the agroforestry as a science is introduced only recently. The systematic research in agroforestry geared up after the establishment of the 2 International Council for Research in Agroforestry (lCRAF) in 1977, which was renamed in 1991 as the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry. During 2001-02, ICRAF adopted a new brand name "World Agroforestry Centre", to more fully reflect their (ICRAF's) global reach and also their more balanced research and development agenda; however their legal name "International Centre for Research in Agroforestry" will remain unchanged. In India, organized research in agroforestry was initiated in 1983 by the establishment of All India Coordinated Research Project on Agroforestry by ICAR at 20 centres and later establishment of the National Research Centre for Agroforestry at Jhansi in 1988. At present 39 centres of agroforestry are working in the country. The process of system evolution can be still observed in the natural forests through settled agriculture, animal husbandry and organized forestry with the adoption of variety of land use practices where tree is one of the components. Agroforestry systems have been the target of scientific enquiry and analysis and thus have been defined by many in different ways. Definition of Agroforestry Agro forestry, the word coined in early seventies, has made its place in all the developed and the developing countries of the world. A few definitions of agroforestry are as under: "A sustainable management system for land that increases overall production, combines agricultural crops, tree crops and forest plants and/or animals simultaneously/or sequentially and applies management practices that are compatible with cultural patterns of local population". "Agroforestry is a collective name for land-use systems and technologies in which woody perennials including trees, shrubs, bamboos etc. are deliberately combined on the same land- management unit with herbaceous crops or animals either in some form of spatial arrangement or temporal sequence." "Agroforestry is a land-use that involves deliberate retention, introduction, or mixture of trees or other woody perennials in crop/animal production field to benefit from the resultant ecological and economical interactions". "Agroforestry is a dynamic, ecologically based, natural resource management practice that, through the integration of trees on farms and in the agricultural landscape, diversifies and sustains production for increased social, economic and environmental benefits". In agroforestry systems there are both ecological and socio-economic interactions between different components. This implies that Agroforestry normally involves two or more species of plants (or plants and animals), at least one of which is a woody perennial; An agroforestry system always has two or more outputs; The cycle of an agroforestry system is always more than one year; and even the simplest agroforestry system is structurally, functionally, and socio-economically more complex than a mono-cropping system. It needs to be clearly understood that specifying the existence of spatial-temporal arrangements among components does not help in defining agroforestry, but its value lies in classifying agroforestry examples. Multiple cropping as opposed to multiple uses is a necessary condition to 3 agroforestry. Production diversification is not exclusive to agroforestry and does not help in defining agroforestry. The sole existence of economical interactions among the components is not a sufficient condition to define agroforestry; biological interactions must be present. Similarly the term significant interactions among the components can not be used objectively in defining agroforestry, and its use should be avoided. The presence of animal is not essential to agroforestry. Agroforestry implies management of at least one plant species for forage, an annual or perennial crop production. Once appropriate time limits are imposed on the system, time sequences involving at least two plant species with at least one woody perennial must be considered agroforestry. On the basis of this analysis, the final definition of agroforestry could be: "Agroforestry is a form of multiple cropping which satisfies three basic conditions (i) there exists at least two plant species that interact biologically, (ii) at least one of the plant species is a woody perennial and (iii) at least one of the plant species is managed for forage, annual or perennial crop production." It shows that agroforestry is a new name for a set of old practices. In simple terms agroforestry is "an efficient land-use system where trees or shrubs are grown with arable crops, seeking positive interactions in enhancing productivity on the sustainable basis". Agroforestry combines agriculture and forestry technologies to create more integrated, diverse, productive, profitable, healthy and sustainable land- use systems. The most important agroforestry practices are windbreaks, riparian forest buffers, alley cropping, silvopasture and forest farming. Agroforestry is a "social forestry" - its purpose is sustainable development. Practices are focused on meeting the economic, environmental and social Fig. 2:Musterd with Cassia fistula needs of people on their private lands. At the farm level, agroforestry is a set of practices that provide strong economic and conservation incentives for landowner adoption. Incorporated into watersheds and landscapes, agroforestry practices help to attain community/society goals for more diverse, healthy and sustainable land-use systems. History of Agroforestry in India In about 700 BC, man changed from a system of hunting and food gathering to food production. Shifting cultivation in India is prehistoric and partly a response to agroecological conditions in the region. Horticulture as co-existent with agriculture is found to have been prevalent in India from early historic period (500 BC to I st century An)
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