Potential impacts of agroforestry systems on rural communities and regions in india: Methodological and general issues

Abstract

Agronomic research has shown that, under several edaphic and climatic environment, judicious simultaneous and/or sequential combinations of seasonal crops and trees could lead to greater efficiency in resources use due to complementarities amongst the activities. Agroforestry could, thus, not only be an important means for diversifying conventional agriculture and enhancing biomass output per unit of cultivated land, but could also, among others, i) reduce the risk of crop failures due to uncertainties in weather as trees are more drought resistant, ii) enhance the small and marginal farmers' opportunities to benefit from the high seasonal demand for their family labour and yet use their owned land effectively as they may spread and yet use their owned land effectively as they may spread the tree planting and culturing operations on portions of their land, iii) enhance the choice between income flows and capital assets as many of the tree species are less sensitive to soil quality and are renewable enterprises, iv) arrest declining produvtivity of land through reduced erosion of top soils and enhanced, rain water percolation; and v) check deterioration of canal irrigation development land as farm trees can be biological pumps for rising water tables