Scaling up adoption of agroforestry through watershed development

Abstract

Agroforestry development has become a compulsion to restore eco-balance and bring 33% of land area under forest and/ or tree cover. In light of increasing human and livestock pressures in India, there exists a remote possibility of sparing land for tree cultivation. Due to long juvenile phase of tree based farming, resource poor small and marginal farmers (70% farmers of the country) do not readily adopt agroforestry land use. Moreover, agriculture is the state subject and there is no promotional scheme for development of agroforestry in the states. At this juncture, the best option to bridge this gap and scale up agroforestry adoption by small holders and marginal farmers is to utilize provisions of watershed development projects, which can be used as a tool to promote tree-based farming systems. Fortunately, Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) is operational in the whole country. The budget provisions envisaged under IWMP for capacity building, natural resource conservation, production system and micro enterprises and livelihood promotion can be used to educate farmers about the tangible and intangible benefits of agroforestry, and scaling up its adoption by farmers besides other aspect of watershed management. Although rainfed areas are given priority for watershed development, irrigated areas have also encountered with several problems viz. water logging, salinity, etc and they also need to be covered under agroforestry through other similar schemes. In this way, area under agroforestry can be increased to atleast 40% of arable land through watershed development programme throughout the country.