Technology impact evaluation in agroforestry projects

To identify appropriate methods for evaluating the impact of new agroforestry technologies, ICRAF in 1988–89 contacted 166 projects worldwide about their activities in agroforestry technology monitoring and evaluation. Of the 108 which responded, 45% were involved in some type of impact evaluation. This review revealed common difficulties in selecting impact indicators and methods of evaluation. Emphasis to date has been on evaluating numbers of trees planted and area under agroforestry, rather than socioeconomic impacts. Defining agroforestry adoption and distinguishing intermediate and final impacts were problematic. Impact studies were often difficult to interpret or compare, limiting their value for the rest of the agroforestry community. An analytical framework for planning impact evaluation in agroforestry projects is proposed, based on lessons learned from the review. Selection of indicators should depend upon whether project objectives relate to changes in: number and type of trees grown, land use, farmer knowledge and attitudes, availability of agroforestry products and services, and/or socioeconomic welfare. Data collection tools may include sequential photography or mapping, informal or formal farmer surveys, informal or formal field surveys, farmer meetings and workshops, trend analysis of project records, and case studies of households or communities, depending upon the audience for project evaluation and project resources.     

Surveying farmers' agroforestry plots: experiences in evaluating alley-cropping and tree border technologies in Western Kenya

Evaluation of existing on-farm agroforestry plots should provide useful supplementary information for the design of improved agroforestry systems, in both research and development projects. Such evaluation has been little used, however, largely due to the methodological difficulties of surveying highly variable on-farm plots, and difficulties in identifying key variables for measurement. This paper describes a set of methods and tools used in evaluating plots of alley-cropping and tree borders around crop fields established by farmers working with the CARE Agroforestry Extension Project in western Kenya. Details of survey design, sampling, and implementation are discussed, and suggestions made for carrying out agroforestry surveys in other projects. A condensed version of the questionnaire is appended.     

Smallholder perceptions of agroforestry projects in Panama

The potential effects of agroforestry systems on conservation and development have been well documented. Panama has seen a substantial rise in the number of projects with an agroforestry component in the 1990s. There has been insufficient research on the actual impacts of these projects on smallholders and of farmers' attitudes towards these systems. This study explores the perceived socioeconomic and environmental impacts of five agroforestry projects in Panama. A total of 68 smallholders were administered semi-structured interviews. In addition, 13 agroforestry experts from NGOs, government departments and research institutes were interviewed, and their responses were compared with those of the smallholders. While the projects led to an increase in the standard of living by providing wood products and fruit for domestic consumption, farm income levels generally remained unchanged. This was due primarily to limited market development, the lack of marketing organizations and poor access roads. In terms of environmental impacts, the farmers' responses suggested a slight decline in slash-and-burn agriculture, and an increase in tree planting activities. Some environmental benefits were observed by farmers, including reduced soil erosion, increased soil fertility, and improved quality and quantity of water sources. Nevertheless, slash-and-burn agriculture was still the norm for the majority of farmers. Most farmers continued to harvest wood from primary and secondary growth to meet their domestic wood requirements, rather than relying on trees planted in agroforestry projects. The main obstacles preventing increased agroforestry adoption included insufficient agroforestry extension, inappropriate project design or management (such as top-down management approaches, and the use of food incentives), smallholders' economic constraints, and larger policy issues. Recommendations are proposed to improve project design and management, and to address the economic and policy constraints. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

An approach to developing methodologies for evaluating agroforestry systems in India

India has a long tradition of agroforestry and many different types of indigenous agroforestry systems can be found in different parts of the country. Most of these systems are, however, very location-specific, and information on them is mostly anecdotal. Therefore, their benefits have remained vastly underexploited. The situation is now slowly but steadily changing. It has now been well recognized that agroforestry can address some of the major land-use problems of rainfed farming systems, and that a great deal can be accomplished by improving the indigenous systems. However, agroforestry research is still in its infancy; most of the on-going efforts are of the “WHAT” type dealing with component and system management, with too little attention being paid to the “WHY” (reasons for the observed behavior) and the “HOW” (processes involved) of the results. Therefore, most of the research results obtained from such efforts are also largely location-specific. In order to improve the efficiency of indigenous agroforestry systems, as well as to assess the performance of improved technologies, we need to have a systematic procedure to evaluate such systems. Since productivity, sustainability and social acceptability are the key attributes of all agroforestry systems, evaluation procedures should encompass all these criteria. But the precise criteria for such evaluations have still not been fully developed. A broad evaluation of the indigenous agroforestry systems and current research efforts in India shows that the thrusts of agroforestry efforts are different in different agro-ecological regions depending on the region's characteristic land-use constraints. Therefore it should be possible to develop an evaluation matrix of agro-ecological regions versus agroforestry potentials and attributes. Such a matrix could be a framework for evaluating agroforestry systems, as well as a guide for the type of research and nature of data that will need to be generated from agroforestry projects. The matrix with necessary adjustments can be made use of for agroforestry systems evaluation within relatively smaller areas such as sub-regions to larger areas such as states, or zones consisting of several states. The results of such evaluations can be thses for appropriate extension recommendations for that specific area or region.     

Policy and institutional support for agroforestry: an analysis of two Ecuadorian case studies

Institutional and policy issues are now recognized as high priority items in agroforestry research. However, such studies based on actual field experiences seldom seem to have been undertaken. To help address this deficiency, a study was undertaken in Ecuador to evaluate institutional and policy impacts on agroforestry dissemination using two field projects as case studies.The projects were in contrasting ecological locations: the Amazonian lowlands (the Coca Agroforestry Project), and the Andean highlands (the PROMUSTA project). The impact of policy and institutional constraints (such as land tenure, research and extension support, marketing and pricing, and credit) on the implementation of these projects was assessed based on interviews with farmers and project officials as well as analyses of secondary data. The Coca project was found to be adversely impacted by the lack of extension, product marketing, and credit availability. The principal institutional constraints for the Andean project included legal obstacles to farm-land procurement, inadequate extension, little state-financial assistance, and limited affordable credit. The relevance of these issues was location specific: while access to land was not a serious constraint in the lowlands, it was a major issue in the highlands.The study validates the premise that policy and institutional evaluations should become an essential component of design and implementation of agroforestry projects. Although the components of a sound policy framework might be similar in most developing-country situations, it may not be possible to evolve universally applicable procedures for agroforestry-policy formulation because of the location-specificity of the promoted systems and the institutional issue related to their adoption.Florida Agricultural Experiment Station Journal Series No. R-03861.     

林农复合经营经济效益评价研究现状与展望

文中梳理和概述了当前国内外林农复合经营经济效益评价的研究内容、评价指标和评价方法,认为现阶段对林农复合经营经济效益评价的研究存在以下问题:定量分析的理论研究较少,评价内容不够全面;评价结果不够精确,且缺乏广泛适用性;缺乏区域的最优化模式研究;缺乏对林农复合经营长期系统的跟踪研究等。在此基础上对林农复合经营的经济效益评价进行了展望:林农复合经营的经济效益评价应建立在可持续发展的基础之上,充分考虑经济、社会和生态因素,实现系统全面的评估;大力开发计算机模型等;加强多学科之间深层次、实质性的合作与交流。     

中国复合农林业发展机遇与研究展望

通过概述复合农林业基本内涵、中国林业可持续发展战略及六大林业工程建设与复合农林业的关系.说明复合农林业发展机遇.并结合复合农林业及其相关学科的发展趋势,从研究尺度、研究手段、研究方式、研究地域和热点研究内容等方面,提出我国未来复合农林业研究展望.     

A Case Study Assessment of Agroforestry

Summary

Finding sustainable land-use systems within the Panama Canal Watershed will be necessary for future management by the Panamanian government. Agroforestry is a land-use option for small-scale farmers living within the Watershed that can help achieve the goals of both conservation and productivity. This case study qualitatively evaluates current agroforestry projects in the Canal Watershed using an analytical framework based on other evaluations of agroforestry systems in Central America. Designated criteria for the analysis include: management objectives, project life span, incentives, technology, economic feasibility, community involvement, and extension. These factors can present obstacles to wide-scale adoption of agroforestry systems by small-scale farmers, thus preventing the realization of associated benefits of agroforestry. The analysis of the three field sites visited in March 1998 is followed by recommendations for expanding agroforestry practices among farmers in the Watershed.     

The need to build upon farmer practice and knowledge: reminders from selected upland conservation projects and policies

On-farm research and development projects in SE Asia's uplands have addressed problems of ecosystems degradation. Farmer adoption, however, of land conservation technologies has generally not resulted or has not been sustainable. This paper examines four agroforestry projects and two policy approaches meant to protect upland resources. Promoted innovations and farmer adoption are described. Six lessons are reemphasized: problem identification and prioritization require great care; farmer technical approaches to problems and their underlying technical knowledge should be carefully considered; appropriateness of technical innovations to target populations and environments should be continually evaluated; farmer participation in the adaptation of a 'menu of technical offerings efficiently combines researcher-farmer inputs; research or implementation policies should be reevaluated as adoption gets underway; and incentives need careful thought. Overall, variable scale diagnosis and design that is unbiased towards pre-selected technologies is needed. Lessons learned contributed to farmer-participatory agroforestry research being conducted in an upland rice-based system in the Philippines.     

Directions in tropical agroforestry research: past, present, and future

Reflections on the past two decades of organized research in tropical agroforestry raise several issues. Research efforts started with an inductive and experiential approach but have subsequently followed a deductive and experimental approach that includes hypothesis testing and the development of predictive capability; agroforestry research is thus being transformed into a rigorous scientific activity. The research agenda, so far, has given high priority to soil fertility and other biophysical interactions, less priority to anthropological and sociological aspects, and little priority to evaluating costs and returns, pests and diseases, and the so-called non-timber forest (tree) products. Moreover, larger-spatial-scale issues, such as carbon sequestration, water quality, and biodiversity conservation, have been neglected because of the emphasis on field- and farm-scale studies. Overall, the high expectations that were raised about the role and potential of agroforestry as a development vehicle have not been fulfilled. In order to overcome this, it is imperative that research be focused on the generation of appropriate, science-based technologies of wide applicability, especially under resource-poor conditions and in smallholder farming systems. Future research agendas should entail a judicious blending of science and technology. Applied research should build upon the findings of basic research to generate technologies for application at the farm, regional and global levels. Such research should place increased focus on previously neglected subjects, for example, the exploitation of indigenous fruit-producing trees, the agronomic components of agroforestry systems, and the global issues mentioned above. Furthermore, an appropriate methodology that embodies economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits needs to be developed to realistically assess the impacts of agroforestry, and an enabling policy environment that will facilitate agroforestry adoption needs to be made available. Agroforestry research of the 21st century should strive to build bridges from the inductive phase of the past, through the deductive phase of the present, to the future phase of harnessing science and generating technologies for the benefit of the land and its present and future users. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Temporal analysis of agroforestry systems for rural development

Temporal analysis is introduced as a method to assess the suitability of agroforestry projects for meeting rural development objectives. This form of analysis provides a common base for examining social, economic, ecological, and managerial aspects of agroforestry systems.Temporal analysis begins by describing projects and the activities comprising them for both an agroforestry system and the local population. Factors constraining the sequence of activities are then examined. The assumptions and values regarding the past, present, or future are also analyzed for all groups involved in the agroforestry system. The range of goal oriented behavior affecting scale and duration of projects may be dependent on this time horizon.By understanding these factors, the changes in activities of a social system that may result from a proposed agroforstry innovation can be anticipated. The nature of these changes and their perception by the local population can be evaluated.     

Use of the iterative diagnosis and design approach in the development of suitable agroforestry systems for a target area

The process of iterative diagnosis and design with the active participation of farmers and extension agents was found effective in identifying appropriate agroforestry systems for farmers in the Bugesera and Gisaka-Migongo (BGM) regions of Rwanda. Periodic re-evaluation of research assumptions and technology designs was based on feedback from farmers and extentionists through regular visits to station trials, early initiation of on-farm testing, and interaction with farmer cooperators through informal discussions and formal surveys focused on specific agroforestry technologies. Statistical analysis is valuable for comparison between regions or periods. However, valid conclusions can be drawn without statistics, by employing several farmer-participatory approaches and pooling and properly interpreting the data obtained from them. Farmers' preferred uses of tree biomass in the BGM regions and appropriate agroforestry systems are discussed. If researchers and development agents do not consider the farmers' real needs, circumstances, available resources and management capacity with regard to tree planting, they will fail in identifying and extending suitable agroforestry systems for any region. This study was a part of the ISAR/IITA/World Bank FSR Project, implemented in the BGM regions of Rwanda during 1983–1988.     

On-farm agroforestry research in extension programmes: methods used by BAIF in India

The BAIF Development Research Foundation initiated an agroforestry extension project in Pune District, India in 1984, following earlier on-station research on leuceana-based alley-cropping systems for fodder. In extension meetings, farmers expressed a strong preference for planting a wide range of multipurpose trees on farm bunds and borders rather than single-species alley-cropping. Researcher-managed trials of proposed multipurpose species grown with crops were initiated, but were of limited value. An alternative approach to research was begun in 1988. This approach included a survey of agroforestry practices established by farmers through extension, and collection of data on crop yields by distance from the tree line from a sample of these plots. Research methods are described and modifications suggested for improving the quality of this type of extension-based research.     

中国复合农林业发展机遇与研究展望*

概述了复合农林业的基本内涵及其发展机遇,论述了复合农林业在林业和农业可持续发展中的地位和作用,并结合复合农林业及其相关学科的发展趋势,从研究的尺度、对象及地域、手段及方法、内容等角度,对我国复合农林业的研究进行了展望。     

An economic analysis of improved agroforestry practices in the Amazon lowlands of Ecuador

Since 1985, Ecuador's Ministry of Agriculture has undertaken a demonstration project to promote improved agroforestry practices in already cleared lands of Ecuador's Amazon lowlands to promote regeneration of deforested areas. An important expected outcome of this project is to ameliorate growing population pressures on remaining national forests and natural reserves. These practices include managing natural regeneration of marketable timber trees intercropped to Coffea canephora var. robusta and grass-legume associations, using adequate techniques of coffee pruning, and planting Desmodium ovalifolium CIAT 350 as a ground cover crop or a forage legume in paddocks of the genus Brachiaria. This research was conducted to assess the potential economic impact of such a strategy and to feed back information on research and policy issues.Improved agroforestry practices in this region are not only technically practicable but also economically feasible. Proposed technologies enhance long-term productivity of both land and labor while saving on external inputs and hired labor, making on-going systems more adoptable and sustainable. Future land-use policies should consider on-farm primary forest preservation and controlled natural regeneration of high-value timber in secondary forests as socially efficient land-use patterns. Future research must address germplasm of grass and forage legumes both shade tolerant, and less field management-demanding than current ones.To have a lasting effect this technology should probably be incorporated into a Regional Forest Management Plan, for sustainable production at the secondary forests created with agroforestry technology.in cooperation with Fundación para el Desarrollo Agropecuario del Ecuador, FUNDAGRO, Casilla No. 219, Suc. 16 CEQ, Quito, Ecuador     

Participatory technology development in agroforestry: methods from a pilot project in Zimbabwe

An on-farm agroforestry pilot project was initiated by the Zimbabwe Forestry Commission in 1988. The main objective of the project is to investigate a range of options to solve problems of woodland depletion faced by small-scale farmers. This paper describes the first two years of on-farm experimentation. The first season's trials are described, and the rationale for moving towards an approach of greater farmer participation in the research process is given. Steps taken to promote experimental tree planting on farms are described, and methods used are illustrated by examples from the project. Critical awareness-raising techniques, steamming from Freirian philosophy, have been central to the methods. The need for a partnership between formal and informal farmer-based research is discussed, as is a model for agroforestry research and development. The latter is proposed in a way that formal research develops the components of agroforestry practices, whilst farmers are encouraged to experiment with a combination of these components in order to develop practices appropriate to local conditions.     

Agroforestry education and training activities at the University of Florida

The interdisciplinary program in agroforestry was established at the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Science in 1987 in response to the growing interest in the subject among students and faculty members from different units of the university. It is now an internationally recognized center for education, training, and research in the subject. Pursuant to the overwhelming student and faculty interest in agroforestry issues in developing countries of the tropics and subtropics, the program is particularly active in those areas. Educational activities of the Program are at the post-graduate level. In conjunction with the degree granted in one of the designated departments or other academic units, students can earn a Specialization or Minor in Agroforestry by fulfilling certain requirements. Research projects are undertaken in such diverse topics as biophysical processes, production/conservation technologies, and socioeconomic aspects. Training activities include various short-term courses for professionals involved in management, development/extension, or research related to agroforestry.