Clonal plantations play a key role to increaseagroforestry production enriching farm communities: Indian experiences

Abstract

Agroforestry is a land–use management system where trees or shrubs are grown around or among crops or in pasture lands. It combines agricultural and forestry technologies to create more diverse, productive, profitable, healthy, and sustainable land use systems. Agroforestry as a land use system is as old as agriculture. In a country like India with varied agro climatic zones, various combinations of trees with arable crops, fruits and animal husbandry exist.1 Growing field crops like pearl millet, legumes and oil seeds in a field predominant by Khejri (Prosopis cineraria) and Bordi (Zizyphus nummularia) are examples of traditional agroforestry of Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat States. Growing tree species, such as Eucalyptus spp, Dalbergia sissoo, Azadirachta indica, Acacia nilotica, Grewia optiva, Morus alba and Ficus spp., on the borders of fields to meet local demands for timber, fodder and fuel is a common practice throughout the country.2