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    Definition of Agroforestry Revisited

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    Muhammad Ahmad
    The document revisits the definition of agroforestry and proposes viewing it not just as standalone practices but as phases in developing a productive agroecosystem similar to natural ecosystems. It suggests agroforestry should be seen as a dynamic, ecologically based system that diversifies and sustains smallholder production through tree integration. This would start as a process of integrating current practices into resilient land-use systems that alleviate poverty over time and space. Some farmers already practice this kind of complex, biodiverse agroforestry approach.

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    Definition of Agroforestry Revisited

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    Muhammad Ahmad
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    The document revisits the definition of agroforestry and proposes viewing it not just as standalone practices but as phases in developing a productive agroecosystem similar to natural ecosystems. It suggests agroforestry should be seen as a dynamic, ecologically based system that diversifies and sustains smallholder production through tree integration. This would start as a process of integrating current practices into resilient land-use systems that alleviate poverty over time and space. Some farmers already practice this kind of complex, biodiverse agroforestry approach.

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    The document revisits the definition of agroforestry and proposes viewing it not just as standalone practices but as phases in developing a productive agroecosystem similar to natural ecosystems. It suggests agroforestry should be seen as a dynamic, ecologically based system that diversifies and sustains smallholder production through tree integration. This would start as a process of integrating current practices into resilient land-use systems that alleviate poverty over time and space. Some farmers already practice this kind of complex, biodiverse agroforestry approach.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    12 views3 pages

    Definition of Agroforestry Revisited

    Uploaded by

    Muhammad Ahmad
    The document revisits the definition of agroforestry and proposes viewing it not just as standalone practices but as phases in developing a productive agroecosystem similar to natural ecosystems. It suggests agroforestry should be seen as a dynamic, ecologically based system that diversifies and sustains smallholder production through tree integration. This would start as a process of integrating current practices into resilient land-use systems that alleviate poverty over time and space. Some farmers already practice this kind of complex, biodiverse agroforestry approach.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Definition of agroforestry revisited

    Article · January 1996

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    Leakey RRB
    International Tree Foundation, UK
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    Leakey, R.R.B. 2017a. Definition of agroforestry revisited. In: Multifunctional Agriculture – Achieving
    Sustainable Development in Africa, RRB Leakey, 5-6, Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA.

    Reprinted from:
    Leakey, R.R.B. (1996). Definition of agroforestry revisited, Agroforestry Today, 8(1), 5-7.

    Definition of Agroforestry Revisited


    Roger Leakey

    Roger Leakey is Director of Research at ICRAF, PO Box 30677, Nairobi, Kenya; e-mail:
    [email protected]; fax: +254 2 521 001.

    Agroforestry has been defined in several ways (Nair, 1989). ICRAF’s current definition is a collective
    name for land-use systems and practices in which woody perennials are deliberately integrated with
    crops and/or animals on the same land-management unit. The integration can be either in a spatial
    mixture or in a temporal sequence. There are normally both ecological and economic interactions
    between the woody and non-woody components in agroforestry. This definition has served well and
    helped agroforestry to become recognized as a branch of agricultural science in its own right
    (Sanchez, 1995).

    Agroforestry practices come in many forms but fall into two groups – those that are sequential, such
    as fallows, and those that are simultaneous, such as alley-cropping (Cooper and others, 1996). In all,
    some 18 different agroforestry practices have been recognized by Nair (1993), although each has an
    infinite number of variations. Thus, at the moment, agroforestry is viewed as a set of stand-alone
    technologies that together form various land-use systems in which trees are sequentially or
    simultaneously integrated with crops and/or livestock. In agroforestry research, practices are often
    applied after diagnosis and design, participatory research or characterization studies, as appropriate,
    depending on the social, economic and environmental problems in an area.

    Agroforestry is generally practiced with the intention of developing a more sustainable form of land
    use that can improve farm productivity and the welfare of the rural community.

    My problem with the current view of agroforestry is that many people still see it as a set of distinct
    prescriptions for land use. As a result, it falls far short of its ultimate potential as a way to mitigate
    deforestation and land degradation and thus alleviate poverty. A different view, however, is that
    agroforestry practices can be seen as phases in the development of a productive agroecosystem,
    akin to the normal dynamics of natural ecosystems. Over time, the increasing integration of trees
    into land-use systems through agroforestry can be seen as the passage towards a mature agroforest
    of increasing ecological integrity. By the same token, with increasing scale, the integration of various
    agroforestry practices into a landscape is like the formation of a complex mosaic of patches in an
    ecosystem, each of which is composed of many niches.

    These niches are occupied by different organisms, making the system ecologically stable and
    biologically diverse. Filling some of these niches with species that provide important environmental
    services or economically valuable products or both should result in land use that is both more
    sustainable and productive. Furthermore, the benefits with increasing scale from the farm to the
    landscape and the region are exponential, since the ecological and social benefits of diversity on a
    landscape scale are considerably greater than the sum of the individual farm-scale benefits.

    Within this ecological framework, farmers can manipulate and manage their trees to take advantage
    of the benefits of the processes in ecosystem services or products, by breaking the process of
    agradation – or ecosystem development – at any point, or by allowing a mature agroforest to
    develop. Fallowing and relay cropping, for example, make use of the benefits of early successional
    stages of ecosystem development, while complex multistrata systems approach a mature
    vegetation, such as the commercially valuable damar agroforests of Sumatra (see article this issue p.
    8).

    Therefore, I suggest that agroforestry should be reconsidered as a dynamic, ecologically based,


    natural resource management system that, through the integration of trees in farm- and rangeland,
    diversifies and sustains smallholder production for increased social, economic and environmental
    benefits.

    If the above concepts are accepted, then agroforestry researchers and extension workers have a
    challenge – to start the process of integrating a number of the current agroforestry practices into
    productive and sustainable land-use systems that alleviate poverty. Contrary to the alternative of
    monocultures, over time and space these land-use systems become more complex, biodiverse and
    both ecologically and economically resilient to the normal patterns of climatic variability and pest
    and disease outbreaks. It is worth noting that in some areas of high population density, farmers are
    already ahead of the game, and are already practising this kind of agroforestry.

    References

    Cooper PJM, Leakey RRB, Rao, MR and Reynolds L. 1996. Agroforestry and the mitigation of land
    depletion in the humid and sub-humid tropics of Africa. Experimental Agriculture, 32:235-290.

    Nair PKR. 1989. Agroforestry defined. P. 13-18. In: PKR Nair (ed) Agroforestry Systems in the tropics,
    Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

    Nair PKR. 1993. An introduction to agroforestry, Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic


    Publishers.

    Sanchez PA. 1995. Science in agroforestry. Agroforestry Systems 30:5-55.

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