The concept of agro-forestry is an older concept. Farmers,
especially those in the tropics, have a long tradition of raising food crops,
trees and animals together, as well as exploiting a multiple range of
production from natural wood lots. But foresters and agriculturists, who have
traditionally operated within rather rigid disciplinary boundaries
concentrating on monoculture production of their preferred commodities of
crops, animals and trees used to ignore such combined integrated production
systems.
- Agro-forestry
is a collective name for land-use systems involving trees combined with
crops and/or animals on the same unit of land. Further, it:
- Places
emphasis on the use of multiple indigenous trees and shrubs;
- Is
particularly suitable for low-input conditions and fragile environments;
- Involves
the interplay of sociocultural values more than in most other land-use
systems; and
- Is
structurally and functionally more complex than monoculture.
Definitions
Agro forestry is any sustainable and-use
system that maintains or increases total yields by combining food crops
(annuals) with tree crops (perennials) and/or livestock on the same unit of
land, either alternately or at the same time, using management practices that
suit the social and cultural characteristics of the local people and the
economic and ecological conditions of the area.
This definition implies that:
- Agro-forestry
normally involves two or more species of plants (plants or animals), at
least one which is a woody perennial;
- An
agro-forestry system always has two or more outputs;
- The
cycle of an agro-forestry system is always more than one year; and
- Even
the most simple agro-forestry system is more complex ecologically
(structurally and functionally) and economically than a mono-cropping
system.
Benefits from Agro-forestry
Environmental Benefits
Combining trees with food crops
on cropland farms yield certain important environmental benefits, both general
ecological benefits and specific on-site benefits. The general ecological
benefits include:
- Reduction
of pressure on forest.
- More
efficient recycling of nutrients by deep-rooted trees on the site.
- Better
protection of ecological systems.
- Reduction
of surface run-off, nutrient leaching and soil erosion through impeding
effect of tree roots and stems on these processes.
- Improvement
of microclimate, such as lowering of soil surface temperature and
reduction of evaporation of soil moisture through a combination of
mulching and shading.
- Increment
in soil nutrients through addition and decomposition of little-fall.
- Improvement
of soil structure through the constant addition of organic matter from
decomposed litter.
Economic Benefits
- Agro-forestry
systems on croplands/farmlands bring significant economic benefits to the
farmer, the community, the region or the nation. Such benefits may
include:
- Increment
in an maintenance of outputs of food fuel wood, fodder, fertilizer and
timber;
- Reduction
in incidence of total crop failure, common to single-cropping or
monoculture systems; and
- Increase
in levels of farm incomes due to improved and sustained productivity:
Social Benefits
- Besides
the economic benefits, social benefits occur increases in crop and tree
product yields and in the sustainability of these products. These
benefits:
- Improvement
in living standards from sustained employment and higher incomes;
- Improvement
in nutrition and health due to increased quality and diversity of food
outputs; and
- Stabilization
and improvement of upland communities through elimination of the need to
shift sites of farm activities.
Limitations of Agro-forestry
An integrated food-tree farming
system, while advantageous, does have certain negative aspects.
Environmental Aspects
- Possible
competition of tree with food crops for space, sunlight, moisture and
nutrients which may reduce food crop yields;
- Damage
to food during tree harvest operations;
- Potential
of trees to serve hosts to insect pests that are harmful to food crops;
and
- Rapid
regeneration by prolific trees, which may displace food crops and take
over entire fields.
Socioeconomic Aspects
- Requirement
for more labour inputs, which may cause scarcity at times in other farm
activities;
- Competition
between food tree crops, which could cause aggregate yields to be lower than
those of single crop;
- Longer
period required for trees grow to maturity and acquire an economic value;
- Resistance
by farmers to displace food crops with trees, especially where land is
scarce; and
- The
fact that agroforestry is more complex, less well understood and more
difficult to apply, compared to single-crop farms.
Role & KVKS in Agriculture and Rural Development
Krishi Vigyan Kendra’s (KVKS) are
an innovative science based institutions, which undertake vocational training
& frames, form women & would youth. The KVK activities in dude
“teaching by doing”, “leasing by doing” in agriculture and allied areas on form
testing & technological in science training & extension personal &
agenizing frat line demonstrations. They provide various types & training
to would youth.
KVKS are the grass root level technology
transfer and vocational training institutions designed for bridging the got b/n
the available technologies and their application for incurred production and
the other. The following philosophy-
- Accelerating
agricultural & allied enterprises and there acquisition & inputs
& did be the prime goal.
- “Learning
by doing” and “Seeing is Believing” are the main principles for imparting
sleep-training.
- The
emphasis in one improving the socio-economic conditions & wheelie
sections & the society by generating income oriented self-employment
opportunities to make them economically self-Selman.
Functions & KVKS
- Collaboration
the subject- matters specialist & the state agricultural universities
/scientists & the Regained Research station in “on-from” testing,
refining & documenting technologies for developing regain – specific
sustainable land use straitens.
- Organizing
long-team vocational training courses in agriculture & addle vocations
for the social youth emphases an
“Leaning by doing” for generating self-employment there institutional
financing.
- Organic
front – time demonstrations in carious crops to general parody data &
feedback infraction.
- Organic
training to update the extension personal which the area & operation
emerging advances in agricultural research in regular basis.
Types & Training organized by KVK
A KVK organics a wide variety & training
programmers based as nature, duration & subject matter areas. Training
programmers could be either –
·
Institutional a non- institutional
·
Generalized or specialized, and
·
Long duration or short duration
In India there is a requirement
of huge natural resource. Population which resides in the rural areas and in
the forests are in the want of the 5 F’s which the forest provides them. So in
order to minimize the burden on the forests, the new integrative approach
called agro- forestry or social forestry has been evolved so as to fulfill the
needs of the rural population in India.
VAIBHAV RAJDEEP
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