Uzbekistan: Rehabilitation of Desert Rangelands Affected by Salinity, to Improve Food Security, Combat Desertification and Maintain the Natural Resource Base - Combating Desertification in Asia, Africa and the Middle East - page 262

Planting herbaceous fodder crops between fruit and fodder trees on intensive
agro-forestry plantations leads to increase the productivity of land degraded by both
overgrazing and salinity lands. Better plant growth, accumulation of green biomass
and consequently yield of both fresh and dry matter were significant for alfalfa both
in pure stand and in mixed artificial agro-phytocenosis including trees.
The biosaline agro-forestry concept evaluated in this study provides a means
of on-farm drain water management, thus alleviating the need for expensive and
potentially hazardous evaporation ponds. Moreover, it could create conditions for
maintaining the investigated target remote desert and semi-desert areas as viable
farming regions. Immediate actions to direct research towards reclamation of saline
prone and desert lands, generation of useful non-timber products and achieving
co-benefits of C sequestration by conserving natural resources, renewable energy
sources, arresting waterlogging . One of the key motivations for government to
develop and promote agroforestry is that it can generate these benefits in addition
to financial benefits from the sale of commercial products. Further investigations
should be done to show the significance of biosaline agroforestry to reduce poverty
through improving household food and nutrition security.
References and Further Readings
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