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Agroforestry has come of age during the past three decades. The age-old practice of growing trees and crops and sometimes animals in interacting combinations – that has been ignored in the single-commodity-oriented agricultural and forestry development paradigms – has been brought into the realm of modern land-use. Today agroforestry is well on its way to becoming a specialized science at a level similar to those of crop science and forestry science. To most land-use experts, however, agroforestry has a tropical connotation. They consider agroforestry as something that can and can only be identified with the tropics. That is a wrong perception. While it is true that the tropics, compared to the temperate regions, have a wider array of agroforestry systems and hold greater promise for potential agroforestry interventions, it is also true that agroforestry has several opportunities in the temperate regions too. Indeed, the role of agroforestry is now recognized in Europe as exemplified by this book, North America, and elsewhere in the temperate zone. Current interest in ecosystem management in industrialized countries strongly suggests that there is a need to embrace and apply agroforestry principles to help mitigate the environmental problems caused or exacerbated by commercial agricultural and forestry production enterprises.
Agroforestry research is central to developing methods for the sustainable use of natural renewable resources, evolving to address the needs of the coming century. It is now necessary to consolidate the scientific gains now being made in process-oriented research and to develop a policy framework to encourage the adoption of sustainable land use practices. Agroforestry plays an important role in conserving forest resources, reducing the need for deforestation. Further, if `forest' is broadly defined as tree cover, agroforestry will also increase the proportion of woody biomass in farming landscapes. The papers selected for inclusion in Agroforestry: Science, Policy, and Practice establish agroforestry as an interdisciplinary science focused on the practical imperative of assisting farmers, forest dwellers and landscape-level planners to achieve sustainable food, fuel and timber production into the 21st century.
This volume contains a solid body of the current state of knowledge on the various themes and activities in agroforestry worldwide. It is organized into three sections: the Introduction section consists of the summaries of six keynote speeches at the 2nd World Congress of Agroforestry held in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2009; that is followed by two sections of peer-reviewed thematic chapters grouped as “Global Perspectives” (seven chapters) and “Regional Perspectives” (eleven chapters), authored by professional leaders in their respective agroforestry-related fields worldwide. A total of 130 professionals from institutions in 33 countries in both developing and the industrialized temperate regions of the world contributed to the book as chapter authors and/or reviewers. Thus, the book presents a comprehensive and authoritative account of the global picture of agroforestry today.
This textbook is one of the finest books on agroforestry that offers a global review of the approaches, tools and technologies, research innovations and real-world practices in agroforestry. The book offers a comprehensive guide to basic principles, techniques and applications, integrative strategies, economic and environmental concerns, and future trends in agroforestry in different regions of the world. It will help all scientists, students, professors, farmers, foresters, decision-makers, and politicians who wish to build a safe land use system for food, energy and better environment for future generations. This textbook will enormously benefit the students for their preparation of competitive exams like UPSC-Civil Services, UPSC-Indian Forest Service, ICAR-ARS Scientist/NET Exam, ICFRE Forestry Scientist Exam, State Public Service Commission Exams and University Entrance Exam for admission to M.Sc. and Ph.D. programmes.
It was in late 2002 that the idea of preparing a collection of multi-authored chapters on different aspects of ag- st forestry as a compendium for the 1 World Congress of Agroforestry, June 2004, was tossed around. With the approval of the idea by the Congress Organizing Committee, serious efforts to make it a reality got under way in early 2003. The rigorously peer-reviewed and edited manuscripts were submitted to the publisher in December 2003. Considering the many differentindividualsinvolved in the task as authors and manuscriptreviewers, we feel quite pleased that the task could be accomplished within this timeframe. We are pleased also about the contents on several counts. First of all, the tropical-temperate mix of topics is a rare feature of a publication of this nature. In spite of the scienti?c commonalities between tropical and temperate practices of agroforestry, the differences between them are so enormous that it is often impossible to mesh them together in one publication. Secondly, several of the chapters are on topics that have not been discussed or described much in agroforestryliterature. A third feature is that some of the authors, though well known in their own disciplinary areas, are somewhat new to agroforestry; the perceptions and outlooks of these scholars who are relatively unin?uenced by the past happenings in agroforestry gives a whole new dimension to agroforestry and broadensthescopeofthesubject. Finally, ratherthanjustreviewingandsummarizingpastwork,mostchapterstake the extra effort in attempting to outline the next steps.