Tree Growing on Farms in Northeast Luzon (The Philippines): Smallholders’ Motivations and Other Determinants for Adopting Agroforestry Systems - Smallholder Tree Growing for Rural Development and Environmental Services - page 84

Photo 3.3 Protection of Gmelina arborea seedlings against astray livestock in Isabela Province,
the Philippines (©DJ Snelder)

Farmers underline that tree products most often play a minor, and mostly addi-
tional, role in rural household economies (Photo 3.4). Seldom do households com-
pletely rely on tree products for their cash income. This is reflected in the data on the
function or role that trees have in the eyes of the respondents (Table 3.4). When asked
to indicate what role trees have in their farm fields, farmers mentioned: shade (97
percent), soil protection and conservation (94 percent), timber production
(93 percent), building poles (91 percent), windbreak (90 percent), fruit production
(89 percent), fuelwood (79 percent), organic manure (73 percent), beautification
(70 percent), crop interaction (39 percent), medicine (26 percent), animal fodder
(4 percent), live fencing (3 percent), charcoal (1 percent). In order to understand
which roles farmers value the most, we asked respondents to rank the different roles
of trees in their farms. The results are, in order of importance, timber production, fruit
production, soil conservation, shade provision, fuelwood provision and windbreak function.
This clearly confirms the emphasis farmers put on productive roles of trees, since timber
and fruit production consistently rank respectively first and second. It is interesting to
note that the role of trees in soil conservation is considered to be highly important.

3.3.3 Farmers' Motivations Under Changing Land-Use

Conditions

To study local trends in on-farm tree growing, households were asked whether they
made adaptations or conversions in the cropping systems applied to their farm