National Conference on Agro-ecological Basis of Agroforestry: Interaction, Innovation and Invention organised in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh

18 Jun, 2024

Agroforestry combines traditional and modern land-use systems, integrating woody perennials with crop and livestock components to boost productivity while sustainably utilising natural resources. By practicing agroforestry, the demand for deforestation decreases as farms supply wood products, the need for fertilisers is reduced, and agricultural resilience is enhanced. This leads to increased crop yields, a better environment for animals and effective climate change mitigation.

In this context, a National Conference on "Agro-ecological Basis of Agroforestry: Interaction, Innovation, and Invention" was organised by the Indian Society of Agroforestry and ICAR-Central Agroforestry Research Institute, in collaboration with Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystem Services (FES) Project, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), and Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF). The event took place in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, from 18-19 June 2024.

The conference began with a warm welcome by Dr. A. Arunachalam, President of the Indian Society of Agroforestry (ISAF) and Director of the Indian Council for Agriculture Research – Central Agroforestry Research Institute (ICAR-CAFRI), who emphasised the importance of agroforestry in sustainable agriculture and rural development. The chief guest, Mr. Bhupesh Pal, District Development Manager (DDM) of NABARD, released the 26th Volume of the Indian Society of Agroforestry and a policy paper titled ‘Foresighting National Agroforestry Policy.’

Over two days, six technical sessions covered topics such as agroforestry-based agrifood systems, agroecology and resilience, trees outside forests in India, socio-economic and policy issues in agroforestry, public-private partnerships, quality planting material (QPM) and tree genetic resource improvement. These sessions featured more than 10 lead lectures, 25 oral presentations, and over 50 poster presentations. A notable session included a farmer-scientist interface attended by more than 50 farmers, where they learned about scientific goat farming, the benefits of farmer-to-farmer extension, and the role of trees in goat rearing.

The panel also released a publication jointly prepared by the FES Project and the ISAF on ‘Best Practices for Livelihood Diversification through different Agroforestry Systems,’ highlighting crops such as aonla, guava, ber, bamboo, teak, citrus, and mango.

The conference concluded with a session on the role of agroforestry in increasing farmers' incomes, followed by an award distribution for the best agroforestry farmers.

Key recommendations from the conference:

• Development of a location specific tree based agri-based food production system as a joint venture between the All India Coordinated Research Projects (AICRP) on agroforestry and other partners like GIZ, CIFOR-ICRAF, etc.
• Industrial linkage in the agroforestry sector must be strengthened with regional models.
• Financial institutional linkage in the form of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) and Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in agroforestry must be strengthened in specific regions.
• Existing value chain on agroforestry must be strengthened and interlinked to realise the goals of the National Agroforestry Policy.
• Equal emphasis should be given to all components of agroforestry such as fruit trees, fodder and livestock; in addition to timber trees to harness the full potential of agroforestry
• To work on the restoration potential of agroforestry, the GROW report on agroforestry can be expanded to cover the entire country.
• Strengthening and streamlining the agroforestry extension framework will provide more technological and input support to upscale the agroforestry area in the country.
• There is a need for an institutional arrangement for quality management and public private partnership for enabling accelerated quality input and output delivery for enhancing the overall tree-based farming in the country.
• The research outputs on the agroforestry have also been protected through Intellectual Properties (Ips) like patent, copyright, design and variety etc.

Release of publication jointly prepared by FES Project and the ISAF on ‘Best Practices for Livelihood Diversification through different Agroforestry Systems | © GIZ/Atul Dogra

Group photo of the participants | © CAFRI Team

About the project

Integrating the lessons from HP-FES, a follow-up project on ‘Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystem Services (FES)’ is being implemented by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, State Forest Departments of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and GIZ India on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). It aims to strengthen forest and agroforest management to integrate the Forest Ecosystem Services approach with a focus on water availability. Read More

For more information contact: biodiv.india@giz.de