F.C. OWEYEGHA- AFUNADUULA

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Introduction

With the advent of colonialism in the continents of Africa, Asia , Latin America and Australasia, socio-economic development came to mean insulting the environment with development projects involving large engineering projects, chemicals and foreign know-how. This was particularly the case in agriculture.

Often negative impacts on the environment have manifested themselves through water resource development, mining, road construction, tourism, wood industries, and agricultural products. The challenge is how to prevent undesirable environmental effects before rather than after the implementation of such projects without necessarily putting a stop to development pursuits.

In Africa the preoccupation is rural development. The challenge is to provide a catalyst for sustainable economic and social development leading to a new environmental balance since we cannot turn the clock back. solutions must be found to the problems of rural development within the fragile ecological and resource base, a milieu of unevenly disseminated peoples and socio-culturally diverse elements.

Following a new awareness of environmental problems and issues the people of Africa are becoming more conscious of environmental degradation and the challenges thereof as well as the potential of alternative ways for improving their own well being. The need to evolve patterns of development that are not only economically feasible but environmentally sound is receiving wide acceptance in intellectual and political circles. There is also recognition that poverty is the greatest destroyer of the environment, with the greatest potential to constrain the life supporting capacity of local environments. New facts new perspectives and new strategies to fight poverty have been emerging over the last decade.

One strategy has been the popularisation of the integrated approach to development. As late as 25 years ago people trying to work out environmental balance had no conceptual framework to direct their efforts. However, in the last decade or so such framework has emerged with the new thinking emanating from studies of environmental science or environmental education. There is now a great opportunity to integrate or bring together all relevant specialties or approaches to matters of the environment and development through the integration of all factors involved with a view to containing poverty, protecting the environment and with forethought for the future, generating the will to manage wisely the resource base. There has also been a recognition that long term considerations of the environment and development are in fact inherently political in nature and leadership at all times.

With respect to food production, decades of decline in food production in Africa, Asia and Latin America has necessitated the use of agroforestry strategy to ensure food production while at the same time protecting the environment at the local level.
This paper examines the principles, practices and potential of agroforestry and gives some recommendations for suitable curriculum of instruction in agroforestry and strategies to improve the technique for efficient environmental management and as a tool of rural development at the local level.

Agroforestry vis-à-vis Silviculture

Agroforestry is a special type of multiple land use practice in which trees are grown along with crops. Food crops are the main land use but trees are also grown to produce fuel wood, matchwood, poles, and fodder. At very wide spacing perennial crops (e.g. fruit trees) can be grown and annual crops in-between them.

Silviculture on the other hand is a type of multiple land use where trees are the main crop, with the main aim being to produce trees for the farmer. Food crops, livestock raising wildlife bee-keeping, recreation, soil and water conservation, windbreakers and shelter belts are often emphasized in silviculture.

Both agroforestry and silviculture offer hope in the solutions of food and fuel crisis. The two are often advanced as an alternative to conventional types of intensive large-scale farming or the establishment of large commercial forestry plantations (e.g. Maclennan 1984). They attempt to make the fullest use of soil, plant foods, soil moisture and sunlight that is obtainable in the conventional approach growing trees and food separately they also assist to regulate soil loss and protect it from solar impact.

Agroforestry and silviculture may thus be used as combined food crop/ fuel wood growing systems. It is however, important that the two are socially and culturally acceptable to the rural people and should provide more (or at least the same returns as) than the traditional systems in terms of money, time and energy (Maclennan, 1984) They must also be acceptable to politicians, farmers and foresters and contribute immensely to the environmental security of the area concerned.

A lot of research is still at the stage of finding out which trees, food crops, livestock and wildlife are suitable for certain areas and which can be raised successfully together. Trees used must satisfy the following requirements (Maclenna, 1984) although no tree can meet all these requirements alone.
Fast growing
High yield of good field
Useful for building and furniture
Be able to coppice easily
Edible fruits for man, livestock or wildlife
Edible leaves.
Deep root system
Withstand drought
Resistant to termites
Not produce too much shade
Bear plenty of seed
Easy to grow from cuttings
Have thorns to stop gnats
Medicinal

The list is not exhaustive. Trees like leucaena leucocephala, Tamarinus indica, Acacia albida, Acacia tortilis and Adansonia digitatu (Brahab) are suitable but the latter with over 60 uses is not good for firewood. The local people have their own time-tested combinations of trees and crops from which experts wanting to popularise agroforestry can learn a great deal.

Scope of Agroforestry

Agroforestry can involve annual, biennial and perennial crops with the latter being trees for timber, firewood and fruits. It may also include animals of different types such as sheep, cattle poultry, pigs and fish. Ornamental shrubs for horticultural production may also be included. All these may be integrated in various ways and combinations into a cultural practice that would give optimum yield in a given situation.
Agroforestry however, may be aimed at checking desertification in arid or semi arid areas, where crop production may form a green belt or plants may be grown in various combinations to protect field crops and livestock. Emphasis will vary with the needs of the farmers.

Attributes of Agroforestry

Agroforestry is in essence a way of reconciling conflicting needs of nature farmers and foresters through a constructive change in the pattern of shifting cultivation. It aims to optimise the use of land resources to stabilize the environment and to provide stable products of food and trees. It is particularly suitable for marginal lands and low input systems for it does not depend on high value inputs. Nair (1983) records that, ‘agroforestry allows food and wood at the same time and on the same piece of land conserves the ecosystem yet offering sustainable production from the land and is compatible with the social cultural aspirations and economic conditions of farmers’
However, for agroforestry to succeed there must be hunger for land underemployment and low standard of living in the rural areas (King, 1968).

Why Agroforestry in Environmental Education?

Agroforestry needs to be given special attention in environmental education. The idea emphasizes food and fuel production and food and fuel are the biggest problems for the countries of the south many countries in Africa for example spend more than 25% of their national budgets on imports alone. A mixture of neglect and competition for land use has constrained food production and availability. The last 22- 24 years have seen neglect of agriculture particularly peasant agriculture by government in preference for export crops.

The traditional practice of shifting cultivation has met problems as populations of humans have increased. But the modern shifting cultivation involving well off to do people and heavy machines in forested areas is a serious headache in rural areas. The practice requires extensive land, which is becoming unavailable due to rising human populations. It is because of this that the judicious integration of forestry, agriculture and pastoral land use systems (agroforestry) is being advocated. Agroforestry implies both ecological competition and ecological interdependence of trees crops and livestock, which are both of great interest to environmental conservation.

Structure of Village Agroforest and the Principles

The fundamental difference between agroforestry and other farming systems is that agroforestry is an intimate arrangement of trees and crops often on the farmer’s land itself so that the resource base and the lands of trees/shrubs species used are likely to be different (Huxley, 1981).

A traditional village agroforest has a vegetation structure (i.e. physical arrangement of plant over space and time) similar to tropical forest ecosystems. The principle underlying the establishment of a village agroforest and a tropical forest system is the same. A good example is the coffee shade species system in Figure 58.

Figure 58. A Village Agroforest: Coffee Shade Species System.

The second layer may be of Citrus sp, Musa Sp. (Banana), Mangiferi indica or any other fruit or timber producing species. The pattern or combination of trees/crops is quite familiar in west Africa (Sillah, 1984).
Occasionally the tree species when mature may be used for timber but more often its branches are used to provide firewood.
Once the stage for food production is reached the cash crops are harvested annually and sold locally to augment the income of the farmer who may engage in other farming during the other parts of the year.

One of the most intensive and successful traditional village agroforestry system practiced outside Africa are the village gardens in West Java in Indonesia. The system has the tendency of stimulating natural forest ecosystems to a highly elaborate degree. The peasant makes sure that his activities are well integrated with the natural landscape apart from employing a sophisticated system of production (Michon, et al, 1983) The villages themselves are part of the agrosystem. Their knowledge pool their experience and their practice regulate or modify the functioning and dynamics of the other biotic components (Machon et, al, 1983) They extend individual care to each plant that could be compared to the ‘mass treatment attitude towards cultivated plants in monoculture (Machon et, al 1983).

In the agroforest, annual crops are harvested at the end of their productive season. Trees are eliminated as soon as their productivity is decaying. Agroforest gaps are controlled in such a way that they are not as big as in natural forest. Recolonisation of a gap is partly regulated by the villagers (Machon et, al, 1983). Besides the natural recycling process of waste products has been established. The cycling and recycling systems are sufficient to maintain soil fertility with no resort to chemical fertilizers (Machon, et al, 1983). Besides the natural.

The advantages of the West Java agroforest systems are many and diverse. Farmers are provided with a mix of food and cash crops that can offer a large degree of self-sufficiency. Harvests and consequent income are disposed throughout the year and provide greater stability than is possible with only one or two annual crops. Besides, stability and sustained productivity which agroforestry systems ensure under marginal site conditions, socio-economic and ecological aspects also form an integral part of the system. (Machon, et. al., 1983).
Due to diversity of tradition, infrastructure, soils and climates, different types of combinations and management forms of agroforestry are practiced in Africa (Sillah, 1983).

In the semi-arid zones such as Sudan and Sahel zones of west Africa, Acacia alnida and parlcia clappertoniana are grown as farm trees. They provide food and fodder for cattle. At the same time they bring additional services of income to farmers through firewood sales.
Along the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania indigenous people intercrop coffee, bananas and annual crops with timber trees such as Grevillea Robusta . In Southern Senegal a combination of agriculture, animal husbandry and forestry is practiced by the local people. The trees Borassus Palmyra, Adansonia digitata and acacia albida are the most valued species for their multiple domestic and industrial uses (Niang 1981) They are cultivated together with millet sorghum, and groundnut in stands for livestock to browse.

In cote de Ivoire oil Palm is grown in association with other crops such as Hevia coffee and cocoa. The palm groves provide suitable habitats for cattle raising. In southern Sudan a combination of agricultural crops, animal husbandry and forestry is practiced. The trees preferred are similar to those in a Senegalese agroforest. The famous Tungyan agroforest system has been tried in Sierra Leone. An under storey of cash crops such as cocoa, coffee has been used in Terminalia plantations in protected forest.

Institutionally Tried Agroforestry Systems

Various agroforestry systems and techniques are being tried by international research institutions such as on the international institute of Tropical agriculture (IIIA) in Nigeria, the university of Hawaii, in USA and the International council Research in agroforestry (ICRAF) in Kenya. All are improvements on the traditional methods and other methods practiced in Africa. Their goals and aims are much more clearly defined.

Such a system incorporates agricultural crops, forest plants, fast growing trees and animals simultaneously or sequentially. The main aim is to check erosion build up soil organic matter and recycle nutrients .The fast growing trees may be chopped back for timber, which may be sold to augment the farmers’ income.

The IITA’A Alley Cropping System

This system involves planting fast growing trees such as Leucaenia and Gliricidia, and later cutting them back. The leaves so-removed are applied to the soil as mulch and nutrient source and the branches are used as firewood and the trees are allowed to regenerate and new growth is used as succeeding crop. The mulch provides an equivalent of 100kgm ha to sustain maize production on a low-fertility soil (IITA, 1980). The system offers an attractive alternative to Bush Fallow system (shifting cultivation) and may be easily adopted by small farmers in the tropics (IITA, 1980).

ICRAF’s Sylvo-Pastoral System

This is a combination of rangeland management and agroforestry. It involves the use of browse, shrubs and fodder trees. It was tried and evaluated by ICRAF and is now a key way of supplementing animal feed. Woody perennial may reduce grass production but not the overall production of total fodder or protein. Also the Phenological responses of trees and shrubs can be different, sometimes very different from that of the ground vegetation . The trees/feed materials into unfavourable seasons in a very significant way (Huxley, 1981).

Environmental Constraints Problem Associated with Agroforestry Practices

In general three basic elements present constraints to the development, implementation and management of agroforestry production systems in the tropics particularly in Africa: labour land and capital These three elements are intimately tied up with social economic and cultural factors.

Labour

Labour may be needed in additional amounts. Labour is generally cheap in Africa but may be expensive in an agroforestry production system, which mainly involves small farmers with small incomes.

Land

This is perhaps the most important constraint as far as ownership and tenure. Land tenure system in most of tropical Africa is very complex in rural areas. Land is not owned by individuals but the community, often the family. A tenant or other user with capital may wish to plant trees in a rented area but the owner (s) of the land will prohibit it as tree planting will confer rights of usage.

Social factors

These also militate against the wide acceptance and implementation of an undoubtedly sophisticated agroforestry production system For example social and traditional customs may prohibit the use of certain areas of land or bush land or cultural or agricultural crops let alone a system incorporating both agriculture and forestry.

Decision-making

Most decision makers lack the basic knowledge about the potentialities of an agroforestry system. Often the clarion call from government sources is ‘ more food production’. How and where this is done is usually not the concern of Government officials. This lack of knowledge results in the unavailability of funds for much needed land use planning research and extension programmes.
At present there are hardly adequate well-trained personnel to handle or improve existing agroforestry systems let alone devise new systems and install demonstration plots.

Complexity of Agroforestry System.

Agroforestry system is apparently more complex and less understood by scientists and extension personnel (if they are there at all) with high agricultural and environmental education are absent.

Time lag

There is a time lag between establishment of agroforests and benefiting from them. Initially agroforests cost a lot of money and may require quite a long time lag in cropping trees before any profits are realised.

Population

In areas where the population density is high and land resources are scarce and where survival is based on the next crop there may be considerable resistance against the planting or tending of trees.

Recommendations

Research

There is need for research to be initiated on existing agroforestry systems to provide an inventory, information on species compensation, bio-ecology and the economies of these systems. A multi-disciplinary approach should be the way involving universities, agricultural institutions and the local communities. Bio-ecological studies should be able to give information on:
Soils in relation to stability and support of the growth of multiple vegetation types and carrying capacity.
Trees and shrub species for the yield of fuel, pulp, pharmaceutical products etc, their growth rates, provision of shade etc.
Field crops compatible with specific perennials, their growth and yields under different tree cover.
Ecological requirements, pests, diseases of both annuals and perennials.

Basic biology of so-called exotic species of trees and field crops which could prove suitable for agroforestry plantations such as Acacia auriculiformes and the winged bean, Psohocarpus tetra gonololus
Socio-economic research could provide information on factors that determine preferences for specific tree crop combinations management strategies that give optimum yields and multiple harvest, the effect of agronomy on rural employment, the contributions of agroforestry to the national product and revenue; the long term effect of agroforestry on rural development, standards of living, farm yields, environmental conservation/ preservation, forest regrowth and regeneration, local initiatives and collective autonomy and the economic effects of infrastructural development on rural development.

Sociological research would provide information on the reasons for rural-urban migration syndrome social and cultural barriers to the integration of women into rural economic structure; women’s economic contribution to the rural economy and overall rural development; social implications or consequences of agroforestry and motivation strategies towards accelerated community development.
Research on political and cultural institutions, legal-administrative structures, aspirations, myths, dreams etc would also be very useful to establish prohibitions to a successful agroforestry strategy.

Curriculum content of an Agroforestry course in environmental Education

Basic scientific principles for farming through Agroforestry
Elementary Biology and Ecology
Concept of ecosystem
Elementary soil science
Ecosystems Services
Forest Ecology
Social forestry
Elementary farm & Forestry Management
Cost benefit analysis
Environmental Impact Assessment
Marketing Distribution
Basic Concepts of Food products for specific populations
Population growth and issues
Concept of land carrying capacity
Nutrition/ Under nutrition/ Malnutrition
Starvation
Balanced diet
Childcare

Integrated environment and Development
Fundamentals of Rural Development
Ideal strategies
Main actors
Relationship with natural development
Preferred local strategies
Basic concepts of rural community
Organisation
Structure and function
Development
Basic social amenities for rural development
Good housing
Good sanitation
Adequate food & power supply
Recreational facilities
Access Transportation
Markets
Good water supply
Health facilities
Good water supply
Educational facilities
Basic conditions for rural development
Eradication of the manifestation of poverty.
Controlled population growth
Equity concept
Environmental conservation
Concept of local participation in development
Basic strategies for rural development
Practical demonstration of successful (and profitable) agroforestry systems.
Mobilisation of resources
Technical innovations
Increasing efficiency in resource utilisation
Limitation of small holdings
Integration of urban and rural areas
Diversification of rural economies

Role of culture in basic needs provision and collective development
Concepts of culture
Cultural basic of rural development strategies & project.
Cultural aspects of agriculture
Adult education
Concepts of peasants’ rationality
Modern approaches to rural development
Concept of social change Acculturation cultural grievance and cultural integrity.

The nature and scope of Agroforestry
Agroforestry systems in Africa.
Agroforestry systems in Asia
Agroforestry systems in Latin America
Advantages, limitations and disadvantages of Agroforestry systems.
(Compare with traditional farming systems, modern monoculture systems, forestry practices, livestock raising and ranching).
Characteristics of various tree crop livestock combinations.
Suitable Agroforestry systems for:
Tropical rain forests
Sahel
Savannah
Guinea savannah
East African Savannah
Management of agroforestry systems
Gender issues in rural development
Women in local agriculture & food production.
Women in agroforestry systems.
Women’s workload and patterns of work.
Contribution of women and patterns of work
Contribution of women to domestic economies
Education for and of rural women
Women’s organisations and collective economic
Security.
Family education & planning & population control.

Current environment and development concepts proposed for Africa
National parks
Forest parks
Ecodevelopment
Ecotourism
Integrated rural development
Integrated environment & Development
National environment action plans
Structural adjustment programmes
Lagos plan of action (1980)
IGADD

Methods of adult education in agroforestry
Multidimensional & Multidisciplinary
Approaches
Practical demonstration
Practical applications
Field activities
Group discussions
Music/Dance/ Drama
Readings
Tours

Practical techniques for stimulating community awareness and participation
Provision of incentives to prospective participants in local agroforestry projects
Spread of agroforestry ideas in schools + Training institutions
Training of extension workers in Agroforestry
Proper management of agroforestry systems
Training of managers at all levels

Research into Agroforestry system
Data collection by farmers & extension workers.
Trials of new tree crop- animal combinations.
Need to design specific technologies for specific conditions & based on sound empirical data.
(Note: successful establishment of agroforest is specific to ecological zones, soil types cultural & economic preferences of rural people).
Needs assessment
(i.e. determination of community and other needs for land personnel economic inputs forest products e.g. fuel wood charcoal pulp gums resins poles, timber) etc.