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An e-publication by the World Agroforestry Centre |
AGROFORESTRY A DECADE OF DEVELOPMENT |
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section 4 Chapter 12 Marilyn W. Hoskins Introduction During the Workshop on Agroforestry held in Freiburg, Germany, in 1982 (Jackson, 1984), it was evident that the participants, selected by the United Nations University as people already actively involved in agroforestry, had a basic division in approach — those who felt agroforestry was a value-neutral science or technique, and those who looked to agroforestry as a promising development tool. It was not that the second group felt there was no need for basic research, but rather that they were hopeful that research designs, training, and other foci in what was then considered a new professional arena would take into consideration the socio-economic and political issues to make agroforestry useful in development efforts. Since that time, research on physical interrelationships among biological components of agroforestry has continued. But instead of taking research priorities from the more customary technical issues involved, mainly in production-increase potential, much agroforestry research has been based on topics selected through an expanded farming-systems type approach, the diagnosis and design (D & D) methods. D & D uses a multidisciplinary problem-solving focus originating from the perspective of farmers. Establishing research priorities from within the social milieu in this manner promises to put agroforestry research results ahead of much traditional forestry and agricultural research in being of great relevance to farmers. However, the methods of making new innovations available to farmers are not yet clear. During recent years, various social scientists also have been looking at factors involved in local tree growing and have helped to point out a number of issues which must now be taken into consideration if new techniques in agroforestry are to be adopted by farm families. The combination of social and political factors which are involved in promoting trees in traditional farming and livestock systems are unique, and as such deserve special emphasis. Some specific elements are similar to those found in organizing community development or in water resource management. Agroforestry extension, however, is more commonly compared to agricultural extension, with which a number of the more temptingly obvious similarities prove to be superficial. Current agricultural extension methods are not tailored to include consideration of the special legal status which trees may have compared to other crops, the time horizon for farmers before tree benefits may be available, the different seasonal rhythm of labour and other requirements of perennials compared to annuals, as well as the changing availability of many specific trees and tree products which have formerly been available as a free good. These considerations must be recognized and highlighted, whether the situation calls for adequately training, retraining and co-operating with agricultural extension and other services and/or for developing special forestry/agroforestry extension units within the forestry departments. The uniqueness of the socio-economic factors involved in tree promotion is perhaps even more important to examine if we are to work with extension and development ministries and agents already in place. Probably agroforestry awareness and training will be needed for various extension agents dealing with farmers. However, if methods commonly used in agricultural promotion programmes are adopted without careful modification for use with agroforestry they may indeed defeat the promotion of farmer adoption, causing such programmes to come to a dead end, if they begin at all. It is not easy to select and describe the crucial socio-economic variables in a universal way: situations differ depending on the locality, environment and the major traditional production activities; issues overlap and are not easily considered in isolation. Variables will need to be studied case by case. However, examples of common issues, even if incomplete, may serve to highlight some of the questions which should be raised in order to tailor agroforestry promotion policies and the training of promoters in an effective manner. Common issues include: local uses and knowledge, tenure, organization, conservation, landlessness/distance, enterprises and marketing, labour, nutrition, and gender/age.
Neither forestry nor agricultural training focuses on learning from farmers how they use and manage tree resources. Even farming-systems approaches, which ideally put agriculturalists and farmers together to look at the family farming system, generally stress maximizing crop production and omit trees altogether. Foresters ordinarily consider timber or, more recently, polewood and fuelwood production. What the tree means to local residents in terms of desired production techniques and wood qualities is seldom explored. Trees which split into planks using a wedge are required for a type of housing and technology used in the Congo. "Y"-shaped posts are always used for traditional housing and granary supports in Malawi and many other locations throughout Africa. Foresters intent on looking at availability of fast-growing, straight trees with good crowns may miss seeing the collapsed granary when these straight trees are substituted for "Y" posts in traditional constructions. Non-wood items such as seeds, fruits, fibres, gums, saps, leaves and bark are seldom noted by extensionists unless they relate to a cash crop such as gum Arabic or certain fruits. Yet farmers propogate trees for many purposes. For example, palms are grown in places as far apart as Benin and Thailand to provide palm sap for wine or coconuts for family use or palm fibres to weave baskets for a small family enterprise. Local women, men and youth can identify not only numerous uses they make of trees and shrubs, but in some areas they have a whole system of classifying interplant relationships. In Senegal, for example, some plants are classified as "co-wives" and others as "brothers". In this case co-wives is the classification for plants that inhibit and brothers are plants which foster each other's growth. In the Bhil ethnic group in India, some plants are also called co-wives but these are considered plants which grow well together. In Nepal they are called husband and wife. Where such classifications of local plants are well developed, they could be very important in furthering agroforestry development and adoption. Other local knowledge relates to such scientific management as biological pest control. In Madhya Pradesh, India, residents have long grown millet in combination with cowpeas, having learned that the insect pests which live on the latter attack the insects living on the millet and thereby help prevent crop loss. Learning about the scientific knowledge gained from generations of informal research into making a livelihood in a selected environment can help further the knowledge of professionals, who, after all, must realize that they are newly facing each specific environment and its vagaries. When people promoting agroforestry do not establish two-way communications, they run the risk of dissipating great sums and energy on something irrelevant in the environment in question. An example of this comes from Indonesia. A dwarf coconut palm was developed which was an obvious scientific success. Although it did not live as long as the local variety, it had more coconuts, matured sooner, and was much easier to harvest as its fruits could be reached while standing on the ground. All of these features might be desirable in cash-crop palm orchards, but they were not appreciated by families who wished to grow them in their homegardens. Homegardens are carefully planned to use various levels and space above and below the ground and to manage light. The leaf crown of the tall palm tree was in a space above all the other plants and caused little shade; the shorter variety competed in the space reserved for bananas. The faster production of more fruit was not as highly valued as the more limited number of coconuts, adequate for family use, being produced over a longer number of years before replanting. Finally, the shorter plants were harder to monitor to keep passersby from stealing the fruit (O. Soemarwoto, personal communication). Clearly, in agroforestry promotion there is no room for one-way communication. Listening skills are essential. The selection of the specific-agroforestry innovation to be tried in a certain environment must not be decided from outside. The popular "Training and Visit (T&V)" approach to extension selects the most promising technique for immediate increase in production. This focus may be quite misleading for agroforestry techniques which require long periods of time to test and to obtain results. Pre-selected topics may destroy the potential for creating a system in which the farmers are an integral part of the farm-level research team. There is a vast literature on indigenous technical knowledge (for example, see FAO, 1985b; Brokensha et al., 1980). There is also a newly developing literature on rapid appraisal which examines farmers' use of trees within the farming systems and their attitudes toward agroforestry, such as that being produced by Khon Kaen University in Thailand. This second category of information can be especially useful in developing appropriate training of agroforestry promoters in those multidiscipliriary approaches which help outsiders quickly gain the background to be able to speak with farmers in terms relevant to the local situation. As Dani and Campbell (1986) point out, in the Himalayas rural people are developing their own effective watershed management techniques. Many of these are agroforestry practices which result in more fuelwood being produced and more trees being planted on the farmland. Sajise (1985) has described customary agroforestry practices developed by isolated ethnic groups in the mountains of the Philippines, which include enriched fallow combined with using tree stems as the basis of terraces. A number of foresters have also contributed to understanding local agroforestry practices. For example, in Africa farmers have various methods of pollarding and protecting trees within the rural landscape (Polsen, 1986; Weber and Hoskins, 1983). In many cases, then, the challenge for agroforestry extension seems to be to identify and understand what positive steps farmers are already taking and to find ways to support and strengthen these. This appears to be true whether the agroforestry intervention relates to fostering trees in agricultural or herding systems or successfully integrating annuals and animals into forested areas.
Tenure issues for agroforestry may be similar to those faced in promoting agricultural programmes only when land use is privatized, tenure of trees is synonymous with tenure of land, and the farm operator is the owner. But this is frequently not the case. There is a growing literature pointing to the complexity of tenure issues. Raintree (1985) has described seasonal access to the same piece of land by different groups, such as farmers and herders. Serial tenure of this type is practised in much of arid Africa as well as in the savanna belt of southern Africa. Although policy makers and farmers themselves may consider the farmers as holding the land tenure, little support will be given to claims for cattle damages if the crops are not harvested before the accepted time for transhumant or local herders to bring their herds to the fields. A favourable balance of land area and its use by farmers and herders allows for more passive management with natural regeneration (see FAO, 1984; FAO, 1985a; Dove, 1983). However, where land pressure calls for the introduction and/ or active protection of small perennials, a new sort of year-round protection, either social or physical, is required. This new land management may impinge on the traditional use-rights of others. Sometimes the land tenure is controlled by a group such as an extended family or clan and use-rights are individualized on a short-term basis. In this case the introduction of hedgerows, windbreaks, or even individual tree planting may be considered anti-social or may limit highly valued flexibility. Fortmann (1985) has documented a number of instances when tree tenure is not the same as land tenure or when rights to tree products are considered separately from rights to tree removal. These cases, more common than previously realized, lead to a variety of incentives for tree protection or destruction. Planting or, on the contrary, removing trees may also relate to establishing or assuring land-use rights. For example, case studies in Peru (Gutzman, 1987) have documented farmers planting trees for the purpose of securing land rights. This is also a customary practice among certain ethnic groups in Cameroon, whereas in others land use is traditionally or currently given to those who clear the land of trees. The Cameroonian landscape around neighbouring villages with these contrasting tree/land relationships is strikingly different; the first is lined and dotted with trees while the second is almost denuded. Many complex tenure rights are supported through local custom; others, often in conflict with customary rights, have been codified in modern law (see von Maydell, this volume). Numerous countries have protected valued tree species through special regulations. This has mixed results (FAO, 1986). In Thailand, when young teak trees are found on farmlands they are sometimes removed in favour of less valued trees. Teak is controlled by the forest service and its cutting requires obtaining a permit. A number of countries, such as Burkina Faso, have recently introduced national controls for cutting trees in an effort to slow desertification. Depending on how such regulations are implemented, it could result in farmers removing volunteer seedlings to favour more space for privately controlled annual crops. This reaction has been noted in countries such as Niger where forest land belongs to the forest service and farmers fear that their tree growing also will result in loss of control over land. Where the farm operators do not have permanent or long-term use rights, they may be forbidden to plant trees for fear that this be used as a tactic by which the tenant will gain control over the land, or conversely, these farmers may not be interested since the benefits of the investment are not assured. This may be the case with women in a family who are given temporary use of fields which are under the ultimate control of the male head of household. In the above examples, both traditions and more newly created legislation have treated trees and forests differently from annual crops. Promoters of agroforestry will need to understand these differences as they relate to traditional tree tenure, legal control and current practice of access to and control over trees and tree products. Policy makers will want to examine legislation in the light of policies which support farmers who wish to intensify agroforestry.
Related to land tenure, farming systems and the accessibility of tree products, is the question of local organization. Chandrasekharan (1985) has identified active and passive participation in tree management. He enlarges the concept of passive support to even include changes in habits necessary to allow others to grow trees. Inherent in the concept that tree planting and/ or protection may concretize land use, and may eliminate or vastly reduce free access of land to others, is the idea that to be successful tree planting must be accepted by the community at large, whether the activity itself is carried out by a group or by individuals. In a case study in Burkina Faso, the farmer was supported by various extension and development groups because of his desire to integrate trees in his land-use system. He reported that neighbours carried their animals and put them over the fences to browse on his trees at night. Neighbours had been angered by having their land use limited by his new activities. The need in this case for community-level land-use planning was evident (FAO, 1987a). In the dune stabilization projects around villages near Shendi, Sudan, the nongovernmental group "SOS Sahel" found it essential to request villages to organize committees with representation from each physical area of the village. This organization was necessary in order to design projects which obtained continuous and universal support. A case study involving conflicts between various ethnic groups in Thailand which were integrating crops into different levels in forest land on contiguous watersheds, highlighted the need for intra-community negotiations and regional land-use planning (FAO, 1987b). Rangeland enrichment frequently fails for lack of user negotiations. In Nepal, the legislation allows for local control and management of forests by user groups after defining management objectives. In this case groups make agreements to manage forest lands in a way that will sustain adequate tree cover, which may include various agroforestry options. Some communities integrate annual crops into the understory and others manage such plants as daphne (used for making local paper) which frequently grows naturally in the understorey. In Burkina Faso a new FAO/SIDA project is focused on agroforestry through integration of annuals or livestock on a carefully planned design into forest reserves. Effective local management of common or group resources requires having or developing local organization. Existing local organizational structures will give clues to the type of activities which have the most promise in the given situation. In some cases, such as in the highlands of Peru, activities may be organized on traditional community-wide structures. In some localities, residents traditionally work on some community activities as a group but have family ownership patterns. This situation was successfully handled in an agroforestry project run by the non-governmental organization, CARE, in a Karen community in Thailand by residents building a community nursery together but planting seed and tending and owning seedlings individually which they then planted out on their own farmland. Promoting trees in farmland, integrating animals and "crops into forest land, and protecting perennials in rangeland requires organizational support to be self-sustaining. The ability to identify and strengthen local organizations to bring the innovations to local attention and to support their successful implementation either on a group or individual basis is a great deal more important for agroforestry than for either annual crop production or for block forest management. Agroforestry promoters need to be trained in organizational and negotiation skills, not like those used in agriculture, but more like those used in both community development and in forming water user groups. For policy makers it may require legalizing group management of resources and support of the land-use and management policies adopted through local negotiations.
Overlapping with tenure and organizational issues is that of conservation. Agricultural extension is frequently focused on maximizing production. As was dramatically demonstrated in the peanut basin of Senegal, and is an upcoming issue for mechanized farming in the Sudan, in the large majority of tropical farming systems there can be no continuous farming without trees. Conservation is an integral part of long-term development planning. Since agroforestry is frequently the proposed answer to improved long-term production prospects, conservation and management of soil and water through integration of trees must become part of the ordinary training of agricultural and other extension agents. Foresters, who may be trained in precisely this approach, as in the case of watershed management, must begin to learn traditional conservation techniques from local people and, with those involved, decide whether these traditions should be supported. The labour, cultural, and organizational issues involved in such technologies as stall feeding, fire control, interplanting or enriching fallow lands must be thoroughly considered. Community or regional planning must be extended to include those who may have to give up traditional practices for the benefit of distant water- or land-users. Negotiation skills may frequently be needed to help communities arrive at equitable but effective long-term resource-management decisions. Policy issues will include first finding ways to protect forest dwellers and transhumant herders and others who successfully practise sustainable agroforestry on an extensive land-use basis. When land pressure makes this land use no longer sustainable, ways must be found to help compensate groups who must then change their traditional way of life. However, the choice of these options is a delicate policy decision and must be weighed with the overall development goals foremost, as will be discussed further.
Closely related to conservation, organization and other agroforestry issues are those of access to tree resources for the landless and those living at a distance from forests. Landlessness has seldom been the focus of training for agricultural extension agents who, in all fairness, require land upon which to extend their message. At the same time, tree resources in the past have frequently been available to large numbers of people as a free good. In areas where natural vegetation exists in adequate amounts, free access is common, especially for non-wood products or dead wood, i.e., for non-consumptive uses of trees. But as situations have changed, new legal regulations exert more control over remaining natural vegetation. At the same time, as value increases and supplies are more limited, customary rights to tree resources found on farmland become privatized. Perhaps more importantly, the rules of "good manners" are fading for the weakest groups in society, as noted by Barona (1985). These might allow gleaning for the poor or land use to widows even when not regularized by either tradition or legislation. In countries such as the Sudan, mechanized farming is providing the technology for clearing large tracts of forest lands. At the same time it is cutting off access to tree fodder and cattle routes for herders and to tree and land resources for an increasing number of rural people. This development strategy allows large-scale farmers with access to credit for purchasing equipment to plant many times the amount of land previously cultivated. It also has had the effect of absorbing land in fallow and thereby creating an increasing number of landless. In addition, the wholesale clearing of vegetative cover over large areas of semi-arid land is threatening to increase both wind and rain erosion and thereby to destroy the productive land base. Such a system offers a challenge for agroforestry promoters. For example, they might be able to help policy makers and large-scale farmers recognize that windbreaks or other introduced tree-growing strategies on the farmland could contribute to increased crop production. It could be promoted to everyone's advantage, including overall national production goals, even if planted lots or protected strips of natural forest left in the fields were used as controlled cattle routes and various tree products were made available to local residents. In India the National Wastelands Development Council's programme has been an interesting, though complex, case where a national policy has tried to take into account involvement of the landless. Agroforestry approaches have been promoted for restoring large areas of lands classed as non-productive. In some of the schemes, rural poor and/or landless have been offered financial incentives for reconstituting degraded lands with the potential of long-term use-rights. Access to fuel for cooking and housing materials and other tree products is essential for the well-being of many families. In urban areas, as well as in highly populated rural areas such as those in Java and the Dominican Republic, mixed tropical homegardens are an agroforestry survival strategy of many families (see Soemarwoto, this volume). Agroforestry promoters, when supported by adequate national policies, can develop strategies which improve access to tree products to the landless or those who live at a distance from forests.
One of the essential considerations for rural populations, especially in areas of increased pressure on basic productive rsources, is additional off-farm income provided through processing and/or sale. This is a common consideration in agriculture extension in such activities as milling grains or extracting oils. However, recent studies of forest-based small-scale enterprises have indicated that in a number of the countries studied these enterprises are among the top three employers of rural people. Such a source of off-farm income is especially essential for minimum-resource or landless rural people. Until recently, these enterprises were hardly noticed. Studies show, however, that access to markets and raw materials, and to organizational and management skills, are among the major constraints to increased viability of these enterprises (FAO, 1987d). Selection of appropriate species can increase availability of essential raw materials. Policies which support appropriate market infrastructure and needed skills-training and promote stable access to local supplies of raw materials would appear to offer opportunities for effective rural development through agroforestry. Many products from trees which have been a free good until recent times are newly seen in markets. This means that the increasing problem of provisioning local needs for tannins, medicines, oils and other essential products at the same time creates opportunities to earn income from integrating selected trees into local production systems. However, the markets for these products are often not clearly established. Market support, then, offers a slightly different challenge to one usually faced by agricultural extension agents whose products are more frequently, but not always, fed into established market systems. The issue of harvesting and marketing wood products can offer another challenge, based on weight and bulk, and the resulting difficulty and costs of extraction and transport on the scale of the artisan or small farmer. Where large trees are involved, harvesting may be much more complicated and dangerous and may demand different skills and equipment than the crops with which farmers are more familiar. In many instances, if farmers are not given help with primary processing and marketing, middlemen will absorb the benefits from tree raising. Currently there is no clear understanding by forestry specialists and project designers of the point at which costs to the farmer of legal or illegal cutting of natural vegetation will be equal to or larger than the cost of producing and managing a small or non-industrial wood source either for local use or for sale. A large number of development projects have been oriented around the sale of fuelwood or building poles. Many of these have not been based on realistic market assessments; there has been a ready assumption that a person facing a shortage will necessarily purchase the item. In practice, people often shift to alternative materials such as agricultural by-products and biomass for fuelwood and the results of integrating trees into the production system for this purpose have therefore been economically disappointing. Intercropping trees with crops requiring fuelwood for processing is one promising approach. Planning such associations can increase the value of both crops. In one case in Sierra Leone, the tobacco-curing factory which found itself in a fuel-shortage agreed to buy tobacco from farmers who could also sell them fuelwood. The neighbouring farmers quickly converted their farmland to agroforestry. The local farmer's view of the economic benefits of agroforestry providing mixed products from multipurpose trees and from managing the trees with other crops and/or animals must be better understood. The back and forward market linkages must be studied as well as the way rural people may tap into the market system. Agroforestry, therefore, has a special, though not always well-understood, challenge in the area of enterprise and marketing.
Almost all agroforestry innovations demand change in labour inputs, and the labour requirement is one item in the package of circumstances which rural people weigh before deciding whether or not to adopt a new agroforestry practice. Farm families have developed labour strategies to use inputs of various family members at various times of the year for different tasks. When these labour cycles of men, women and youths are well understood, agroforestry strategies can be developed which complement them. Obviously, additional labour for persons already fully occupied at peak labour season is considered more costly than when additional demands come during a slack season. Labour inputs depend upon the management system designed for the agroforestry practice. Innovations such as intercropping require more labour than traditional slash and burn. In Benin, farmers preferred their customary practice of stump-planting small clumps of more slowly growing teak in corners of their compounds or fields than growing strips of trees interspersed with crops when tree strips required weeding at the same time as the cotton crops. Labour patterns in block planting as done in farm forestry are seen to have some of the same results as mechanized large-scale cash-crop planting. Both greatly reduce labour costs — advantageous to a large-scale producer and an economic blow to the limited-resource farmer or landless worker who depends on labour income. On the other hand, agroforestry may be planned to help the small-scale producer spread out family labour requirements while providing increased overall production. Before one can predict the adoption rate or the development impact of any agroforestry innovation it will be essential for agroforestry promoters to understand local household-labour patterns. They will need to look with farm families at not only land availability and input requirements but also at how the families and the farm labourers they employ would be affected by any change.
Agroforestry offers the possibility of improving food security by more effectively managing soil and water resources for the sustained production of annuals. It also offers a potential for overcoming many problems of seasonality of food availability by greatly extending the season when green fodder and food supplies are available. Trees and other perennials in the production system can help tide people over drought and pest attacks, etc., when annuals cannot survive (Campbell-Asselbergs, 1987). The bushland, which is frequently fallow land or used for extensive livestock rearing, was long valued for the security it offered through containing less preferred fodder and wild seeds and roots which allowed for survival of both people and animals during what would otherwise be a disaster. Periodic droughts which have proven so catastrophic in recent times have been so severe because of the lack of this fall-back resource. Trees found in homesteads or farmlands are also frequently considered a living savings to be left to grow when not required but to be cut in times of need, thereby offering a more secure livelihood (Chambers and Leach, 1986). Nutrition is being considered in an increasing number of agricultural extension programmes, but not in relation to the advantages of integrating trees; nutrition is a completely new focus for forestry. If the nutritional role of trees and other perennials is adequately factored into the extension design for agroforestry it can have an extremely positive impact. When the nutritionally vulnerable are the focus for benefits, agroforestry projects can be used to help increase equity.
A great deal has been written about gender considerations, both in farming and forestry (for example, see FAO, 1982; Fortmann and Rocheleau, 1984; Hoskins, 1983; FAO, 1987c). A number of issues previously referred to, such as local use and knowledge, tenure, organization, landlessness/distance, marketing and labour have gender-specific components. Under each of these elements information must be obtained and kept disaggregated by gender. Certain agroforestry techniques have special promise for women. Homegardens strengthen possible control and access even in cultures such as that in the Sudan where women's mobility is strictly limited. Consideration of the best location for both agricultural and tree crops is needed for women with household responsibilities. Age-group issues are also frequently relevant. On the one hand, where new activities require more inputs from youth (such as fuel collection or livestock care), young people may be kept home from school. On the other hand, when new resources are made available, the opposite result may be seen. The promotion of agroforestry, like agriculture, will require gender/age sensitivity. It may also frequently require women on the teams collecting socio-economic information as well as trained female professionals on the teams promoting two-way communication if women are to be included in the development and expansion of agroforestry activities. Policy makers will have to have access to the above information as well as information on gender-related constraints, which policy changes could eliminate, if they are to understand the potential and to support more effective opportunities for women in agroforestry.
Agroforestry research has added, and promises to add, much more to the toolbag of community-development, agriculture and forestry extension officers in the overall development effort. It helps focus agriculture on sustainable practices and on ways to make smaller parcels of land produce the range of plant and animal products required for subsistence or for market. It offers hope where land pressure has made traditional agriculture and herding practice unviable. When well designed, it can provide a more diverse production system thereby reducing risks. However, when not designed to respond to the social milieu the benefits can completely miss the poor (Chowdhry, 1985). There is now a considerable and growing literature describing agroforestry techniques designed to address certain types of problems in various farming conditions. There is also a considerable and growing literature documenting special socio-economic and political issues which are central to effective promotion of development through agroforestry. But the next step will be crucial. That step is to integrate this information in order to develop the process and train the personnel to move new techniques from the research stations to widespread accessibility for farmer adoption. More attention is now being given to designing on-farm research methodology. However, to be most effective and efficient, the design of on-farm research and extension trials will need to ensure that there is a smooth transition in moving scientific results as well as the research/testing methods themselves from research station to the farm, from the researcher to the farmer. Research institutions will have to co-operate with those offering technical support to extension activities to conceptualize how this is to be done most effectively. It will be a challenge to develop testing methods easily understood and used by farmers in developing realistic but rapid ways to examine plant inter-relationships in the context of their own objectives. This must become a two-way process because only through farmer management and adaptation of these suggested new approaches will the real socio-economic aspects of agroforestry be more fully understood. This final step needs to be designed to complete the information circle, giving data back to the on-station researchers. If attention is given now to planning the full cycle of research and trials and the effective information flow, the speed of providing socially appropriate agroforestry interventions and their adoption will be greatly enhanced. It is only through this testing of methods and information that technical and social scientists can refine their tools and interventions to be, in fact, relevant. Trainers of extensionists are going to have to stay abreast of this dynamic field as more is learned about tree specific issues in different settings. Agroforestry extension agents will need to be trained to approach extension as a service which makes information available and encourages farmers themselves to experiment and to actively participate in the adaptation of research results to fit their needs. It is the continued integration of the social and technical information of researchers and farmers which will be the key also to project implementation. An example from West Africa illustrates the very common type of self-defeating result which happens when integration is not the case and when implementers do not understand its value. In a project, including promoting local participation in agroforestry, there were a number of activities scheduled. There was a planned socio-economic study to provide background data, including how farm families use trees and what further tree resources would be useful for the project to make accessible. There was also a training component to train foresters in two-way communication. Finally, there were inputs to develop small local nurseries to give easy access to desired trees. The training was a great success as foresters talked with farm families and learned about farmer concerns. They learned farm families wanted fruit trees but had no interest in raising fuelwood or poles as there was no local market or need for increased availability of these products. At the same time, the technical decisions were being made in isolation. To the dismay of extension foresters the only tree species planted in the nurseries was a pole-fuelwood species. The socio-economic study was delayed until late in the project implementation. It was seen by the project manager as a way to learn how to get local people to adopt the national strategy of planting woodlots in every village. The project obviously did not meet all of its goals. This common lack of co-ordination in development projects is serious in agroforestry projects given the longer time frame before evaluations clarify the need for modifications in the project. As newly designed agroforestry techniques move out into farmers' fields, overall development issues will also become increasingly apparent. At this junction, there is need for serious examination of policy issues. A number of specific land- and tree-use and tenure issues have already been noted. But the use of agroforestry in the overall development context needs to be critically assessed. Agroforestry cannot become the development tool of choice only when poor land-use practices by commercial loggers or by poorly designed irrigation or other large-scale agricultural schemes have left denuded hillsides or salt marshes. If the services of the poor are used to reconstitute wasted land, their rights to the rehabilitated resource must be protected. Policies need to be designed to support agroforestry as an integral part of better land-use planning and to strengthen access to these new technologies for the poor not only on wasted lands. Agroforestry offers solutions to many problems. Its promises are extremely encouraging and attractive. However, as a development tool, agroforestry will be helpful only if it can be put effectively into the hands of men and women farmers, and if the political decision-makers see this as a tool for achieving equity in development.
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* Editors'note: These papers will appear in: Raintree, J.B.(ed.). Land, trees and tenure. Proceedings of an international workshop on tenure issues in agroforestry. Nairobi: ICRAF, and Madison, Wisconsin: Land Tenure Center (in press). |