Definition and Concept Agro- Forestry
Agro forestry is an age- old practice of integrating farming with practices, preferably on the same unit of land on sustainable basis. Agro forestry systems have received increasing emphasis in the recent years because of their potential to yield fodder, fuel wood and small timber in addition of food. Shortage of fuel woods for construction and commercial purpose. Implementation of development activities like mining, quarrying, and river valley projects are the other reason for deforestation. Shifting cultivation, which is practices in the North- Eastern zone of India, has also affected forest acreage.
Definition: The practices of including trees in crop or animal production agro- ecosystem. Agro forestry may be defined as an integrated self- sustained land management systems, which involves deliberate introduction / retention of woody components with agriculture crops including pasture / live stock, simultaneous or sequentially on the same unit land, meting the ecological and socio – economic needs of people. Or
Agro forestry is a collective name of land use system and technologies where woody perennials are deliberately used form the same land management units as agricultural crops and or animals in the same form of spatial arrangement of temporal sequence. In agro – forestry systems, there is both ecological and economic interaction between different components.
The country is losing about 1.3 million hectare of forest every year due to deforestation. Forest meeting of fuel wood, wood for construction, river valley projects etc. are reason for deforestation. Out of 328 million ha geographical area of India, about 175 million ha i.e 53.3 to 57% is subjected to soil erosion and some kind of land degradation. Under forest only 19.5 million ha area, as against the 105 million ha cultivable land, hence it is felt important that a f forestation should be encouraged through agro – forestry and social forestry programmes. Agro – forestry, play a vial role in the development of waste land. Agro – forestry is considered as an alternate land use system for the wasteland development.