Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
5
Homegarden-based Indigenous
Fruit Tree Production in
Peninsular India
B.M. K
UMAR
College of Forestry, Kerala Agricultural University, Kerala, India
5.1 Introduction
Tropical homegardens are 'intimate, multi-storey combinations of various trees
and crops, sometimes in association with domestic animals, around
homesteads' (Kumar and Nair, 2004, p. 135). They are the oldest land-use
activity in the world after shifting cultivation. Although as a land-use system,
homegarden cultivation is most highly evolved in Java (Indonesia) and Kerala
(India), its coverage is almost pan-tropical, sometimes extending into the
Mediterranean and temperate regions (Nair and Kumar, 2006). The notion of
homegardens as a component of integrated farming systems, which include
fields for staple food production, is also found in the literature (Tesfaye
et al
.,
2006). In this respect, homegarden production is mostly supplementary and
mainly concentrates on vegetables, fruits and condiments, with fuelwood and
small timber as a profitable sideline. Although homegarden research in the past
has concentrated on certain functional groups such as medicinal plants (Rao
and Rao, 2006), phytofuels (Shanavas and Kumar, 2003) and timber-yielding
species (Kumar
et al
., 1994; Shanavas and Kumar, 2006), aspects relating to
the production of native fruits have not been adequately addressed, despite its
economic importance. In this chapter, an attempt is made to summarize the
information on indigenous fruit trees in tropical homegardens with special
reference to Kerala State in Peninsular India.
5.2 Tropical Homegardens as Prehistoric Loci for Fruit Tree
Domestication
Farmers in many traditional cultures have been domesticating fruit trees and
other agricultural crops in areas around their dwellings for millennia, primarily
to meet their subsistence needs. This early domestication process may have
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