The challenge of HIV/AIDS: Where does agroforestry fit in? - World ...

32World Agroforestry into the FutureScientific and technical innovationsWhen markets were booming, technicaland scientific innovation was primarilygeared towards achieving higher yields andgreater productivity. Today we have a morecomplex situation. The success of scientificand technical innovation can no longer beassured without the involvement of all thestakeholders and a clear understanding ofsocial and political contexts. The complexbehaviour of those stakeholders and theshifting policy environments at many levelsmean that social and policy sciences haveto be much better integrated into technologyresearch.The fact that most perennial tree crops areproduced on smallholdings means thatsocial concerns must be taken as seriouslyas the economic and technical aspects.It is essential to know more about thestakeholders in commodity chains: theirmotivation; the reasons for their choices;the scope of their decisions; and how newtechnologies can be adapted to their requirementsand effectively transferredto them.In terms of raising production and productivity,numerous technical possibilitiesalready exist: new varieties, disease controlmethods, crop management sequencesand post-harvest technologies for instance;some of which need to be adapted to newor different socioeconomic contexts. Butsuch possibilities are not always availablefor the areas where they would be mostuseful, and those who need them do notalways have the relevant information. Forsome commodity chains that are overproducing,such as coffee, it is no longernecessary to raise production, though it remainsrelevant for other commodity chainsthat expect a shortage such as cocoaand natural rubber. However, translatingimproved productivity into increased producerincomes remains a priority for manycommodity chains. Quality, be it in termsof industrial technical standards or healthstandards, is becoming the main concern.On top of all these concerns, environmentalissues must also be integrated into theR&D process. This will require a change inthe prevailing attitude and paradigm, notto mention specific scientific and technicalinnovations. Perennial tree crops can havea positive impact on the environment, butassumptions about how to improve landscapeconnectivity and hence biodiversitythrough agroforestry and growing treecrops need to be rigorously tested. Thereare also many serious questions about animalhabitats, choice of tree species, flow ofpests and diseases, and tree genetic diversityon a landscape scale that need answering(Schroth et al. 2004).Agroforestry approachesFor producers, the aim is to share risk bydiversifying crops, either in separate patchesor intercropped within the trees. It is amatter of making better use of land, financialresources and farm labour as well asattempting to maintain (or even improve)the fertility of cultivated ecosystems.If there are no severe land occupation constraints,diversification can take the formof a succession of monocultures withoutintercrops. However, in many countries,farming systems already use several plantsor crops, often in complex combinations.Growing food crops in rows within ayoung tree crop plantation is a commonpractice (known as the taungya system).Several research centres are working onrationalizing these approaches with systemsof biomass transfer and improvedfallow with coppicing and/or quick growthshrubs. More recently, long-term intercroppingof perennial crops has been tested inseveral countries with apparent successfrom a technical aspect (Erhabor et al.2002; Herath and Takeya 2003; Maheswarappaand Nanjappa 2000; Ndeayo et al.2001; Ollivier et al. 2001; Osei-Bonsu etal. 2002; Rajasekharan and Veeraputhran2002; Suja et al. 2003). Indeed, in intercroppingterms, the only limit appears tobe the imagination of the farmers.To assist diversification efforts, researchinstitutions need to make examples of successfuldiversification available (e.g. coffeediversification in Ethiopia and India ,timber and coffee in Costa Rica, fruit treesand cocoa in Cameroon, etc.), provideguidelines, focus more on meeting demandin local and regional markets, and linkdiversification to certification. The CASCAproject (sustainability of coffee agroforestrysystems in Central America [http://www.casca-project.com]) is a good exampleof what R&D could bring to the issue.Another example comes from the rubbersector – jungle rubber – where a multistakeholders’project is being developedin Indonesia, with the aim of improvingthe yield of rubber trees while maintainingthe good environmental achievements ofthe jungle rubber agroforests (Herath andTakeya 2003).The private sector may be encouraged toinvest more in R&D for smallholders is if ithelps maintain or increase quality. Whenquality is declining dramatically, high-endproducers lose out. This is the case forcoffee in Kenya, considered to be amongthe most valuable in the world. Somecompanies are also concerned about theirreputations, for example in the wake of thecoffee crisis that devastated smallholdersbut created record profits for manufacturingcompanies such as Nestlé. The use of childlabour in tree crops is another concern thathas reached world attention. M&M Mars,