Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
resource availability, objectives and socio-economic household characteristics
change over time, costs and benefits that accrue to farmers will change, and the
household can be expected to adjust its livelihood strategy accordingly. As
pointed out by Arnold and Dewees (1999), improved management of wild trees
and tree planting is a function of a change in the frame conditions, such as:
●
Decline of production from off-farm tree stocks due to deforestation, or
more restricted access to indigenous trees.
●
Growing demand for tree products due to population growth, advances in
processing, and market development.
●
Declining soil productivity due to increasing damage from its exposure to
sun, wind or water runoff.
●
Increasing need to secure rights of land tenure and use.
●
To even out peaks and troughs in the seasonal flow of produce, income
and seasonal labour demand, or to provide a reserve of biomass products
and capital available for use as a buffer in times of stress or emergency.
A decline in the availability of indigenous fruits may influence the decision
to plant trees. However, a decline in the abundance of trees that constitute a
common property off-farm resource does not necessarily lead to on-farm
planting. Other factors, e.g. reduction of market constraints or agricultural
policies, besides resource scarcity, also play a role.
In Zimbabwe, households use IFTs primarily in their natural habitat
(Campbell, 1996). This means that the practice of planting these species is
uncommon; trees mostly regenerate by themselves (Minae
et al.
, 1994).
Brigham (1994), Campbell
et al.
(1993, cited in Campbell, 1996, p. 133) and
Price and Campbell (1998) found within rural communities that only between
1% and 10% of households had planted IFTs. More commonly, farmers nurture
young saplings found on their land (Price and Campbell, 1998).
Some studies show that when land areas are cleared in favour of agricultural
activities, IFTs are conserved in the crop fields (Clarke
et al.
, 1996). Indigenous
fruit trees account for the majority of trees that remain standing in agricultural
areas. It has been observed that tree planting and tree conservation activities
around the homestead are responsible for replacing indigenous non-fruit trees
with exotic and indigenous fruit trees (Price and Campbell, 1998). Trees that
remain in the fields are managed by pruning, lopping and pollarding, thus
providing increased compatibility with crops and providing firewood and building
materials to the household (Minae
et al.
, 1994). However, the study of Rukuni
et
al.
(1998) shows that the continuing deforestation process also affects IFTs. This
process is limited to a varying extent by the traditional leaders, who put in place
rules on IFT cutting and also enforce those rules.
Two driving forces push towards more and more active management of
trees. The first is growing scarcity (i.e. on-farm resources have grown more
valuable) and the second is commercialization and the potential income that
can be derived from planting (McGregor, 1991). This has also clearly been
demonstrated for the case of rattan cultivation in Laos (Evans and Sengdala,
2002). As the case of wild coffee in Ethiopia shows, niche markets can be an
incentive to collect coffee from protected areas (Abebaw and Virchow, 2003).
Search WWH ::
Custom Search