Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
21
Accelerated Domestication
and Commercialization of
Indigenous Fruit and Nut Trees
to Enhance Better Livelihoods
in the Tropics: Lessons and
Way Forward
F.K. A
KINNIFESI
,
1
G. S
ILESHI
,
1
O.C. A
JAYI
1
AND
Z. T
CHOUNDJEU
2
1
World Agroforestry Centre, ICRAF, Lilongwe, Malawi
;
2
ICRAF West and
Central Africa Region, Humid Tropic Node, Yaounde, Cameroon
21.1 Introduction
The early stages of the 'Green Revolution' placed emphasis on plant breeding,
increased fertilizer use and plant protection. The loss of biodiversity and the
issue of sustainability have now started to receive attention as one of the major
'downsides' of the Green Revolution in terms of the requirement to meet the
needs of both present and future generations (van Noordwijk
et al.
, 2004).
The harvesting of indigenous fruit trees (IFTs) from the wild pre-dated
settled agriculture. Domestication involves accelerated and human-induced
development in order to bring species into wider cultivation through a farmer-
driven and market-led process (Simons and Leakey, 2004). Opportunistic
regeneration of 'volunteer' seedlings from mother trees to the surrounding
areas paved the way for purposeful utilization and management. Such
trajectories of 'volunteer' or pioneer species have been recognized as providing
the drive for purposeful domestication and the instinctive selection of trees with
the desired qualities (see Chapters 4-6). As a result, the cultivated populations
become distinctly superior to their progenitors.
The integration of diverse high-commercial-value tree crops, including a
diverse array of exotics and indigenous fruit and nut tree crops rather than
intensified monocultures with a small number of staple crops, has been one
of the ways in which smallholder farmers have traditionally been addressing
their livelihood needs. This alternative livelihood intervention paradigm has
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