Introduction to Agroforestry
By David A. Bainbridge
Associate Professor
United States International College of Business
Alliant International University
San Diego, CA 92131
Agroforestry is
receiving long overdue attention as a resource efficient, environmentally
positive, and profitable method of farming. Incorporating trees in farming
and range management can provide many benefits.
The more continuous production from these systems, and the flexibility of
having several options for management make agroforestry systems of
immediate and potential value for farmers and ranchers in many parts of
California.
Agroforestry means many things to different people. It is often applied to
the integration of trees, typically one species grown for timber, with
pasture; but it may also include more complex systems that include trees
with a variety of crops, both annual and perennial species, and
animals.
The definition developed by Lundgren and Raintree (1982) is one of the
simplest and most comprehensive, "Agroforestry is a collective name
for land-use systems and techniques where trees are deliberately used on
the same land management unit as agricultural crops and or/animals, either
in the same form of spatial arrangement or temporal sequence. In
agro-forestry systems there are both ecological and economic (and
cultural:DB) interactions between the different components."
The advantages of agroforestry systems include the potential for increased
resource use efficiency both above and below ground, with roots reaching
10-80 meter depths on some trees and canopies reaching 5-70 meter high.
Trees can draw upon resources, groundwater, nutrients, etc., that are
unavailable to annual plants. Trees are often immune from all but the most
severe droughts and can provide emergency fodder for animals when nothing
else is available. Adding
complexity with trees can also provide many other benefits, including
reduction in pest problems, microsite modification to allow plants with
diverse climatic requirements to be grown in a small area, and the
production of a diverse variety of products for subsistence and sale,
including: firewood, biofuel, timber, food, fodder, building material,
material for tools, fiber, medicine, etc.
Trees can also provide a number of other benefits, including soil
improvement, erosion control, shade, windbreak, groundwater management,
erosion control, , habitat for wildlife, and perhaps, selenium harvesting.
This wide range of products and purposes combine with the increased
resource base to help minimize risk for the farmer. By spreading out
cultural and management requirements over the year these systems can also
reduce peak work loads and ensure a more stable economy.
These benefits and advantages have become
increasingly well known and appreciated in recent years, although J. R.
Smith first described them
almost sixty years ago
(Smith, 1929).
Further Reading:
Bainbridge, D.A. 1997. Agroforestry for the Southwest. pp. 35-38 in M.
Merwin,
ed., The Status, Opportunity, and Need for
Agroforestry in the United
States. Association for Temperate Agroforestry,
Columbia, Missouri.
Bainbridge, D.A. 1997. contributor. A.M. Gordon and S.M. Newman. Temperate
Agroforestry Systems. CAB International, Oxford,
England 269 pages.
Gomez-Pompa, A. and D.A. Bainbridge. 1995. Tropical forestry as if people
mattered. pp. 408-422. In A.E. Lugo and C. Lowe,
eds. Tropical Forests:
Management and Ecology, Springer Verlag, NY
Gomez-Pompa, A., A. Kaus, D.A. Bainbridge, J. Jiminez Orsonio and V.
Rorive.
1993. Mexico Case Study. pp. 483-548. In
Sustainable Agriculture and the
Environment in the Humid Tropics. National
Research Council. National
Academy Press.
Lundgren, B., and Raintree, J.B. 1982. Agroforestry, presented at the
Conf. of
Directors of National Agro-forestry Research
Systems in Asia, Jakarta, 12p.
Smith, J.R. 1988 [1929]. Tree Crops, Island Press, Covelo, CA. 408p.
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