Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
3
Challenges to Stimulating
the Adoption and Impact of
Indigenous Fruit Trees in
Tropical Agriculture
N. H
AQ
, C. B
OWE AND
Z. D
UNSIGER
Centre for Underutilised Crops (CUC), University of Southampton,
Southampton, UK
3.1 Introduction
Indigenous tropical fruit trees are distributed over a substantial part of the
Earth's surface (the tropics extend from 23°N to 23°S), grow in the most
biologically diverse environments in the world, ranging from tropical rainforests
to savannahs and drylands, and are well adapted to their environmental
conditions. These species are especially important in the drylands, where other
fruit tree species cannot be cultivated easily. Fruit trees have been recognized as
important components of forestry, horticulture and agriculture for the last
100 years, but unfortunately these trees are under-researched and therefore
remain underutilized (Gebauer
et al
., 2002). However, there have been some
recent international initiatives for the domestication of trees producing
agroforestry tree products (AFTPs) (Leakey
et al
., 2005a).
3.1.1 Why stimulate the adoption of indigenous fruit trees?
Many researchers have identified the value of these indigenous fruits as a
source of income and household nutrition (Maghembe
et al
., 1994; Hegde and
Daniel, 1995; Doran and Turnbull, 1997; Leakey and Simons, 1998; Huxley,
2001; Stevens
et al.
, 2001; Schreckenberg
et al
., 2002, 2006; Hughes and
Haq, 2003; Lengkeek
et al
., 2004, Leakey
et al
., 2005b; Akinnifesi
et al
.,
2006). Fruit trees provide food, improved nutrition, oil and fuel for cooking,
and many other products, including fodder, medicine, fibre, mulch, timber,
saps and resin. They also maintain the environment by sequestering carbon,
trapping pollutant particles from the air, and promoting biodiversity and
agroecosystem functions. Fruit trees provide shade, reduce surface runoff of
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