An Overview Of Our Solution
One of the main causes of alarming tropical forest loss is conversion to agriculture, which is constantly increasing as a dominant land cover in the tropics. In 2050 global population will reach over 9 billion, and will increase the demand for agriculture and forest products consumption, while exacerbating land degradation. As a sustainable farming, agroforestry can enhance food production, carbon sequestration, soil protection, as well as producing other products, e.g. wood, latex, resins, that can provide extra income. However, across the landscapes agroforestry adoption rate remains low as farmers often face barriers to plant trees. Therefore, in several Asian locations, conducting community based participatory research helped to identify the barriers of agroforestry adoption, and assisted local communities for the successful implementation of agroforestry.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: Asia
General Information
Organization type
Nonprofit
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Forests
Freshwater
Oceans/Coasts
Population impacted
11500 people
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
3500 ha
Production quantity
22000 kilos
People employed
22 people
Solution
Describe your solution
As a sustainable land use solution, agroforestry systems can be a viable mechanism to enhance farm production (e.g. food, fodder, fibre, firewood and timber), protect biodiversity, and support sustainable development. Agroforestry systems also enable farmers to better adapt to climate change as the fruit, nut and berry trees in the systems are often more tolerant than seasonal crops and so can increase the diversity and resilience of food production and enhance food security. Furthermore, it can improve soil fertility by enhancing nutrient cycling, conserve soil moisture and protect soil from erosion. Agroforestry can also help achieving agricultural sovereignty and self-sufficiency through smallholder tree-based farming environment, as well as leading to increases in tree cover in the agricultural landscape.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
Despite all of its merits, agroforestry adoption rate remains low in many locations as smallholder farmers often face barriers to plant trees. This is because, in a landscape scale, adoption to a particular system is often influenced by the corresponding socioeconomic and biophysical circumstances. Understanding such circumstances allows the adoption innovation profitable, feasible and acceptable to the farmers, and valuable in a policy making framework. Therefore, in the case study locations of Palawan, Philippines, West Java, Indonesia, Northern Myanmar, and eastern Bangladesh, I have conducted community based participatory research to crucially identify, i) the existing agroforestry systems, ii) the most important challenges facing farmers in their current land use systems, iii) the barriers of widespread agroforestry adoption, and iv) policies that are most likely to be successful in facilitating farmer adoption of successful tree farming.
The challenge was that the seasonal food-crop-based agriculture has higher income per unit of land area used for crop cultivation compared with the tree establishment and development phase of agroforestry farms. Thus, there is a trade-off between short-term loss of agricultural income and longer-term economic gain from planting trees in farmland. For resource-poor farmers to implement this change, institutional support is essential to improve their knowledge and skills with this unfamiliar form of land management, sufficient capital for the initial investment, and an increase in the security of land tenure.
To overcome challenges, my work enabled the way to assist local communities for the successful implementation of agroforestry projects (e.g. by knowledge sharing, community level peer motivation events, expert training to implement successful agroforestry project through farmer field school, policy support by the government).
External connections
Besides local farmer groups, this work is strategically linked to contribute to the mega-programme- ‘Forest, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA)’, structure being adopted across the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) centers. FTA aims to enhance the management and use of forests, agroforestry and tree genetic resources across the landscape from forests to farms, given the crucial role of trees in confronting some of the most important challenges of our time – climate change, poverty and food security. My work is also promoted scientific collaboration among the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Bangor University, UK, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh. This also produced scientific up to date knowledge aiming to use in developing and strengthening national and international policies in pursuit of the objectives to development and environmental goals through climate smart agroforestry cultivation, and benefit to local, national and international stakeholders.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
The state of forest resources world-wide has reached a critical point and rapidly affecting by human activities. In 2015, the world’s total forest area was estimated to be just 3.9 billion ha and the net change in forest area in the period 2010-2015 is estimated at -17 million ha, -3 million ha/year. Most forest losses occur in tropical countries and the highest rate of forest loss in Asia has been recorded for Indonesia followed by Myanmar. Deforestation has well documented negative impacts on natural capital and ecosystem services, including biodiversity loss, climate change, desertification, soil erosion and watershed degradation. Moreover, in the past 40 years, the human population has doubled and is projected to increase by the same amount again in the next 40 years. This has increased and will increase the demand for agriculture, and consumption of forest and wood products.
Describe the context in which you are operating
The expansion of agriculture due to the population growth has quickened the pace of land transformation and degradation. This problem is compounded by the agricultural intensification currently being practiced in some areas in order to increase crop production and provide food security for the demand of growing population. Nearly 20 million km2 of land, or ~40% of the global agricultural land area, has already been degraded. Of this, over half is so degraded that farmers lack the means to restore it. Evidence from a number of studies also indicates declining growth in yields under intensive cropping even on some of the better land, e.g. the Indo-Gangetic plains. Farmland is affected by soil nutrient depletion and soil physical degradation due to repeated cultivation without periodic application of fertilizers and manure.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
Through increased adoption, agroforestry systems potentially helped to diversify farm products, thus potentially improved household nutrition and welfare. Furthermore it helped to increase tree cover in the agricultural land area; increased biodiversity; improved soil fertility by enhancing nutrient cycling, conserve soil moisture and protect soil from erosion; better ecosystem functions by enhancing delivery of services through carbon sequestration, biodegradation of excess nutrients and pesticides, microclimate moderation, and diversification of habitats for wildlife and humans; relieving pressure on local forest by producing some important on farm forest products, e.g. timber, firewood.
Language(s)
Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia, Burmese, and Bengali
Water
500 characters max.
Food Security/Nutrition
Food security and sovereignty achieved through the access of increased diverse on farm food production.
Economic/Sustainable Development
Enhanced farm income.
Climate
500 characters max.
Sustainability
Agroforestry has potentially increased farm income through market-based revenue. Study provided evidence that, the net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), benefit-cost ratio (B/C), return-to-land and return-to-labour of agroforestry are much higher than those of alternative seasonal agricultural systems. The higher income from agroforestry is mainly used for purchasing or leasing land, buying bullocks and agricultural implements, meeting educational and health expenses of family members, contributing to expensive commitments such as marriage, and paying back loans.
Return on investment
The total project cost was 35,000 USD. The expected return from economic, social and environmental benefits of agroforestry is much higher for the the local communities in the study locations.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
Even this work is conducted in some selected case study locations, it can be potentially replicable in other parts of Palawan, West Java, Northern Myanmar and eastern Bangladesh with the confident of its (agroforestry) generality in this region. I do not recommended extrapolating of this result more widely, however I believe that the main findings about the economic, social and environmental profitability can be applicable throughout case study countries and more widely across tropical Asia.