Role and potential of agroforestry in sustaining land use

Abstract

Agroforestry principles are especially of value in enhancing the agrosystem’s buffer capacity hence in conserving its biophysical capita. While its capacity to increase crop productivity is limited on its own terms it may prove the efficiency of the use of costly (imported) inorganic fertilizers. A distinction is made between the wet and the dry tropics. Successful application of agroforestry is more likely under rainfall renditions above 1 000 mm. There are in most cases, traditional agricultural systems already showing a high degree of perennially of soil cover. Under semi-arid conditions, competition between trees and crops for both water and nutrients is probably too strong to go beyond a light presence of trees in cropped fields. A framework for analysis is presented that helps in identifying nutrient flows at the farming system and its sub-systems. It is demonstrated where agroforestry elements would make a sensible contribution to system sustainability. In the example chosen, the banana coffee farming system of Bukoba, Kagera Region – limited possibilities exist. It is argued that while technologies such as agroforestry are important to consider in strategies to improve agrosystem sustainability, both agroforestry and sustainability are conceptually complex and ill-conceived research in these fields may easily turn counter-productive.