What is agroforestry?
It helps produce multiple outputs from a single resource and ensures constant utilization and replenishment of resources even in low output and fragile conditions. It recreates a forest ecosystem around the principal cultivation crop to obtain sustainable yields over a long period of time. It also ensures that indigenous trees and shrubs receive due attention and are cultivated to maintain healthy environmental balance. Thus involving interplay of socio-cultural values since the crops and trees grown will depend on the results that the community seeks from agroforestry.
Natural Symbiosis
All elements in the farm interact with each other in the same ecological and economic capacities similar to that in Natural forests. Annual/ Seasonal crops are fused with perennial crops in a temporal sequence or a spatial arrangement to ensure resources are used to their optimum level, especially Soil and water. It is more elaborate than monoculture since it requires careful study of nature, then planning and execution based on natural principles. Agroforestry differs from social forestry as social forestry involves creating forests outside of forests depending on the social and financial needs of the populace while agroforestry optimizes existing resources to create an annual supply of ecologically and economically viable produce for everyone.
Agroforestry is the most effective technique in MAPs cultivation, since medicinal plants originally grows in the shades of Forests in nature. Secondly farmers can have a variety of MAPs harvested over the months. Creating MAPs agroforests reduces dependencies on wild collections and simulating their natural habitat in our cultivation, thus having cultivated MAPs with wild characteristics.
Protects and Produces
Agroforestry has two functions, protective and productive. It has environmental, economic and social benefits for local communities as well. It provides nutritious, edible produce as well as improved and sustained farm productivity that is non edible. Agroforestry is also known to repair, maintain and change local environmental conditions by reducing pressure on natural forests and making sustainable living easy and cheap. It also ensures that soil nutrition will be maintained and erosion of soils is controlled.
Essential components of a forest or multi-layered plantation is Overstory and Understory.
Overstory
Overstory forms the upper strata, comprising of big perennial trees, which are either fruit bearing, essential oil producing or timber. Overstory plays are key role in the Agro-forest, the canopy provide differential light and shade to the under-growing plants, protects them from heavy rain, winds and hail. Dry leaves falling from the Canopies provides thick mulch and natural green manure for the soil. Effective spacing must be maintained between the big trees depending on their canopy shape and size, to avoid competition between the tree and the understory. Minimum distance of 15-20 feet between the trees is optimal.
Understory
Understory are the crops planted in the shades of the Overstory. Understory crops can be vines, shrubs, herbs. Since the understory are fast growing plants compared to the overstory, they offer earlier returns and diversify farm yields. Adding leguminous plants in the understory increases the overall soil health. Thick understory reduces labour for weeding, pruning. Thus efficiently increases the total productivity of the farm.
Forest Harmony
Agroforestry is perfect harmony, where Overstory maintains thick mulch, optimal farm temperature, humidity and soil moisture, reducing wind, rain and hail effects on the understory. Trees also offer a support for climbers and vines. In return Understory provides effective weed management, enriches soil quality and maintains a balance of soil micro-organisms, while providing early returns to the farmers and diversifying the yields.
Consumers and Patrons
What is agroforestry
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Natural Symbiosis
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Protects and Produces
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Overstory
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Understory
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Forest Harmony
How to create MAPs Forest
Forests are self-functioning systems of nature which grows thrives and nurtures itself. Agroforestry is preferred over Monoculture for Foods and MAPs since its economically more viable to have an self-sustaining ecosystem which have multiple yields from the same land functioning on its own and generating revenue all by itself.
Farmers or Foresters have to only invest in the initial days to plan it, cultivate the right set of trees and plants and then nurture them till the big trees become self-reliant. Agro-forests are like a natural poly-house setup, where the big trees regulate the sun, rain, winds coming into the farm, and regulate the moisture and temperature inside the farm in a completely natural way, which is adequate for growing any exotic MAPs, fruits, vegetables or Food grains and Pulses. And the best part is all this natural poly-house is revenue generating in its own way. All the farmer needs is to study the nature and ecosystem around and replicate it in the agroforest.
Maintaining Farm Record is a healthy and professional practice which assists foresters in the long run, of the plants, the method of propagation, place of procurement, sowing time, quantities and growing rate, harvesting seasons, watering, manuring etc. This valuable knowledge can be shared with other enthusiasts in time and influence them to Agro-Forestry. Farm Records are essential for International Certification processes.

Pest Management
Pest management usually involves conducting farm operations in such a way that it prevents both causing and spreading of pests, because prevention is often better than cure. Pest management is one of the most important aspects of farming because it ensures that the plants are healthy and have a pest free yield that can give enormous returns. There are government rules and protocols on the kind of seeds that are suitable for growth in different kinds of weather and soil and seeds that aren’t.
There are a number of measures that are undertaken to ensure that pest formation doesn’t hinder crop growth at any point of time. For example, the soil is checked for pests during tilling, hoeing, sowing, crop growth phase and harvesting to ensure that there aren’t any pests that might hamper the growth of crops. If the soil is sub-par, appropriate insecticides, manure and fertilizers are sprayed to discourage pest growth.
Care has to be taken to ensure cleanliness in cropping area. While pruning trees in the farm, dead/ rotten/ diseased branches must be pruned with care and the waste should be cleared from the farm instead of allowing it to sit there and rot, leading to growth of more insects. Farmers must be educated on how to use chemical pesticides and the amount to be sprayed in strips of land or entire field, depending on the infestation since chemical insecticides tend to pollute the environment and soil in equal measures and have a tendency to stay for long periods in the soil, rendering it infertile.
Crop rotation and inter-cropping are one of the most powerful tools in pest management, followed by vigilant weeding and tilling. Apart from these, biologically managing pests includes introducing parasitoids, predators and pathogens into the farm that are useful for the plants but act as deterrents to pests.
Water Management
Managing crop water requirement throughout the year is one of the toughest things to do since there is no guarantee of water supply functioning properly throughout the year. In tropical and subtropical areas like most parts of Asia, water supply may be interrupted by droughts, changes in groundwater level, changes in monsoon patterns, faulty irrigation practices etc. water is a source of life and energy and it is frequently needed during sowing, growth and harvesting season. This requirement is fulfilled via natural sources or irrigation.
MAP’s are fragile crops and their biochemical and physical characteristics depend on environmental factors. Increased yields are possible with the help of adequate water management. Rainfall is the primary source of water, post which rainwater stored in tanks or sub-surfaces can be used as irrigation water. Groundwater is considered as the last source of irrigation. If adequate rainwater is captured, this can last throughout the year.
This kind of water management ensures that decomposition of organic matter is a quick process and microbe activity remains at an optimum level, thereby reducing changes in the chemical makeup of MAP’s being grown. It also ensures that soil insects are under control and plants are not stressed due to lack of water and nutrition. It helps wash out harmful salts from the soil and gets the soil ready for tillage through the year. Sandy soils have a low water retaining capacity and therefore require more water supply while clay soils have a higher water retaining capacity and require lesser irrigation. High yielding crops also have a higher biomass and yield. A higher biomass indicates more requirement of water for production.
Monsoon rains are the only time India receives water. In this scenario, water management is of prime importance in an agrarian country like India.
Maintaining Live-stock
Livestock management involves managing cattle, farm animals, livestock feed and productivity to ensure maximum output from the farm. Livestock management is becoming an increasingly tough job owing to seasonal fluctuations in demand and supply, changing terms of trade and overall shift in demand of fruits, vegetables and MAP’s. Successful management of livestock involves having a product that meets immediate demands of the market. Good healthy livestock, great genetics, quality assurance for everything associated with livestock management, quality assistance, optimum environmental conditions etc. are important factors in livestock management. It requires sound forward and backward integration across markets.
Livestock management is a technical aspect of farming that most people take lightly due to reliance on old, faulty means of rearing and managing livestock. Producers could seek knowledge of many other branches of knowledge related to livestock management like optimizing usage of natural resources to derive maximum potential from air, land, water, soil and food; rearranging grazing pastures to ensure carbon sequestration, resource conservation and aquatic as well as land biodiversity is always taken care of.
Livestock management places a lot of importance on management strategy for usage of manure in farming and livestock production. There are different kinds of techniques to assess different kinds of impact this can have on livestock management. It also helps assess, control and combat soil erosion and runoff drainage. Livestock management techniques change with available environment, soil type, animals, rainfall schedule, alternate arrangements to maintain moisture etc. It ensures that the yield is maximised with minimum inputs of time, energy, resources and management systems are managed effectively, including growth of forage, herd maintenance, growth of fodder, disease management, growth and harvest of animal derived products, maintaining hygiene of animal, animal products and animal waste as well as collection, handling and distribution of manure and FYM.
Consumers and Patrons
Pest Management
Consumers and Patrons
Water Management
Consumers and Patrons
Maintaining Live-stock