Growing trees on farms is a triple-win strategy for combating simultaneously the challenges of increasing food production, mitigating greenhouse gases and adapting to climate change. It is an instrument of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), catapulted to centre-stage by President Obama’s launch of the Global Alliance for CSA at the World Climate Summit on September 23 at New York.

It was fitting, therefore, that “Trees for Life” was the theme of the World Agroforestry Congress held earlier this year in New Delhi. On this occasion the previous United Progressive Alliance government, supported by the National Advisory Council, unveiled the National Agroforestry Policy coinciding aptly with the International Year of Family Farming.

Benefits of tree-based farming

While planting trees on farms is as old as settled cultivation, “agroforestry” is a recently coined term derived from agriculture and forestry. It describes practices developed and employed by farmers over many centuries to cultivate trees on farmland together with crop and animal husbandry. While agroforestry comprises agriculture and forestry in seemingly separate land uses, its essence is of an integrated tree-based farming system. The science and technology, the institutions, and policy sphere of agroforestry is uniquely its own and characterised by a landscape approach.

When strategically applied on a large scale, with appropriate mix of tree species, agroforestry promotes productive and resilient cropping environments, prevents deforestation, protects watersheds and enables agricultural land to withstand extreme weather events, and climate change.

Tree-based systems contribute robustly to livelihoods by providing both tree products and tree services. The bounties they offer include tree products such as fruit, fodder, fuel, fibre, fertilizer and timber which add to food and nutritional security, and income generation and insurance against crop failure. These products are tangible, have money value and are tradable in the markets. Trees also generate wealth through the services they provide in the form of soil and water conservation, nutrient recycling, carbon storage and biodiversity preservation. These services are intangible, not easy to quantify, and do not lend themselves to monetary valuation. At present there is no payment for eco-services provided by tree-based farming systems.

Agroforestry has significant potential to provide employment to rural and urban populations through production, industrial application and value addition ventures. Current estimates show that about 64 per cent of the country’s timber requirement is met from the trees grown on farms. Agroforestry has the potential for augmenting energy capacity through biomass, biodiesel, biochar and biogas production. It is also recognised that agroforestry is perhaps the only alternative to meeting the target of increasing forest green cover.

Despite all this, agroforestry has not become the movement it should have. For a long time the subject fell between the cracks of “agriculture” and “forestry” with no ownership by either sector. The value and position of agroforestry in the national system remains ambiguous and undervalued. It has been disadvantaged by adverse policies and legal bottlenecks. Its adoption by tenant-farmers is constrained due to insecurity of tenure. The subject lies fragmented in several Ministries with hardly any mechanism for convergence and coordination. Inadequate investment in the sector is also a cause for neglect. Unlike the credit and insurance products available for the crop sector, the provisions for growing trees-on-farms are minimal. Weak marketing infrastructure, absence of price discovery mechanisms and lack of post-harvest processing technologies further compound the situation.

Wood Based Industries (WBI) have played an important role in the promotion of agroforestry and economy in Punjab, Haryana, western U.P and in Uttarakhand. However, over the years, the regulations governing the WBI have become stringent. The procedure for setting up new units is cumbersome.

The way forward

The National Agroforestry Policy has pointed the way forward to foster innovation in tree-based farming systems, among various stakeholders.

For lawmakers this would mean amending unfavourable legislation and simplifying regulations related to forestry and agriculture. Policymakers are to incorporate agroforestry in all policies relating to land use and natural resource management, and encourage government investments in agroforestry-related infrastructure, research and education and in the establishment of sustainable enterprises. Development administrators are to develop an institutional framework to ensure coordination between various elements of agroforestry scattered in existing missions and programmes. Farmers are to demand improved agroforestry science and technology from the public research and extension systems, loan and insurance products from financial institutions, and adopt suitable varieties and agronomic practices. Scientists and researchers are to develop location-specific tree-based technologies that complement the crop and livestock systems for sustainable livelihoods, factor in gender concerns, and incorporate the feedback from local communities.

Extension agents, NGOs and farmer organisations are to demonstrate new technologies, build capacities of farmers and help in linking producers to markets and value chains. The private sector is to invest in agroforestry both as a commercial enterprise as well as through the route of Corporate Social Responsibility. Finally, the media is to communicate the benefits of agroforestry to user communities.

Farmers have encapsulated the essence of agroforestry in a pithy slogan “har medh par pedh”(trees on every field boundary). It is time for others to turn over a new leaf. The challenge now lies in the detail of crafting a road map for the implementation of the National Agroforestry Policy by the new government.

(Rita Sharma is a former Secretary in the Ministry of Rural Development and the National Advisory Council and Board Trustee of the World Agroforestry Centre.)