1. Agroforestry

From the word Agroforestry, sometimes peoples assume that it is just made of the two words agriculture and forestry. Although in reality, it is a sustainable land-use system in which increases the overall productivity of the system by combining the crop, tree, and livestock on the same piece of the land management unit, in some form of spatial and temporal arrangement. Furthermore, the management practices are applied to suit the local conditions. Moreover, agroforestry consists of a larger number of the system, classified on the basis of structure (nature of the component, an arrangement of components), function (productive or protective), socio-economic (subsistence, intermediate, commercial) and ecological (tropical, subtropical, temperate, arid, alpine) parameters. In nature of component on the basis of structure, there are different agroforestry systems extending from the use of simple agroforestry systems like improved fallow species in the shifting cultivation to the highly complex system like Home garden.

Agroforestry can provide livelihood as well as food security by providing food, fodder, fibre, fertilizer on the one hand, and environment amelioration by carbon sequestration on the other side. Agroforestry has an immense potential to increase the current forest area to the 2/3^rd area of the country’s total area as specified by Forest conservation ACT 1980 by reclaiming the wasteland and degraded lands. Although apart from a large number of multiple benefits, the acceptances to the agroforestry systems are lacking due to some myths which are as follow:

1. Change in Land status: This is the primary reason behind the non-acceptance of agroforestry. Generally, farmers feel that if they grow/ retain the trees on their fields, this will lead to a change in the status of their land from agricultural land to forest land. This thinking is illogical as there will be no changing status of land in revenue records.
2. Delay in returns: Another perception is that agroforestry includes the trees having long rotation which is correct. Although, with the advancement of technology, there are species like Poplar and Eucalyptus (Safeda) which have a rotation of about 6-8 years and fetches a reasonable price in the pulp and paper industries. Prime minister’s target to achieve doubling farmers by 2022 can also be achieved through agroforestry, as one rupee spent on agroforestry system can yield about 4 rupees
3. Lowering of Productivity: Generally, farmers think that agroforestry trees and crops have negative interaction and reduce the individual productivity of agriculture crops and trees each especially in irrigated land. Although, it can be easily managed with the help of the selection of the appropriate combination of the tree and crops. It is worth mentioning that in rain-fed areas agroforestry has a vast scope as it creates a microclimate, helps in moisture conservation, closed nutrient cycling and soil conservation which increase the overall productivity.
4. Restrictions on harvesting and transportation of agroforestry produce: There are restrictions; cumbersome procedures and various taxes imposed on harvesting and transportation of agroforestry products, especially timber. But, with the implementation of the National Agroforestry Policy 2014, India becomes the first country in the world to implement such a comprehensive policy. According to this policy, there is relaxation on harvesting and transportation of the twenty multiple purpose agroforestry trees. Sub-mission on Agroforestry and National Bamboo mission also help farmers for providing quality planting material. Private industries also take significant initiatives in the promotion and acceptance of agroforestry. As the introduction and development of the poplar in India are due to the efforts made by The Western India Match Company (WIMCO) Ltd., by introducing four strains of the Poplar from Australia.
5. Farm Mechanisation: Farmer generally perceives that if they adopt the agroforestry, this will make trying to use farm machines. But if it maintains proper spacing between the trees especially among the rows of the trees, there will be no problem in the use of the farm machines. Even the plant to plant spacing will be very less.
6. High initial investment: Although, the agroforestry systems in their initial years required high investment and labour intensive. But there are schemes launched by the Govt. namely the National Bamboo Mission and Sub-mission on Agroforestry which provides the subsidy on the establishment of nursery and also on the quality material.
7. Increase in Insect-pest incidents: Sometimes, Agroforestry can increase the events of the insect-pest attacks, but these are not always correct. The agroforestry systems are sustainable systems and after a particular interval of time, they manage the insect-pest attacks.

2. Social Forestry

Social forestry is made of two words; social means socially configured and forestry. It is firstly used in the 9th Commonwealth Forestry Congress by the Westoby in 1968 during his inaugural address at New Delhi. The concept of social forestry is very easy and consists of the practice of forestry (planting of forest trees) beyond the conventional limit of the forests with the help of local rural people. So that continuous supply of the diversified products especially fuelwood, fodder, fruit, small timber etc. can be maintained for the local rural people which lead to decrease their dependency on the conventional forests. This can be definitely seen as an afforestation/reforestation program which is practised by the people, of the people, and for the people. The major component of social forestry consists of farm forestry, extension forestry, linear strip plantation, mixed forestry, rehabilitation of the degraded forests, recreation and aesthetic forestry.

3. Joint forest management

Joint forest management (JFM) means the management of the forest by the cumulative cooperation of the forest department and rural people for the safeguard of the forest resources especially from the fire, grazing, illicit felling, smuggling of animal ivory and other parts. The concept of the JFM evolved during the early 1970s when some group of people from the Arabari district of West Bengal voluntarily helped in forests protection without any assistant or initiative from the state and central government. Although, National forest policy 1988 makes the official ground for the JFM. The rules and regulations in the JFM are very flexible and vary from state to state. In JFM, the forest department is not the only beneficiary but the forest department gives the liberty to the local rural people to extract the non-timber forest products from forests and sometimes during the sale of the timber, some of the shares of the revenue also given the local peoples. In general, JFM mixed the philosophy of forest conservation with livelihood security. Most of the JFM activities are confined to the degraded forest land, although in some areas non-degraded forestland has also been covered under this.

4. Conclusion

In a nutshell, Agroforestry systems have a high potential to provide food security sustainably and solve the climate change problem. But due to some myths and wrong perceptions of the farmers, it is not widely accepted. According to an estimate, about 25.31 million ha is under agroforestry which is 8.2 per cent of the total geographical area of the country. There is an urgent requirement of the boost to the acceptance of agroforestry which can be achieved if farmers will be provided with more subsidies or payment for the ecological services (carbon trading) provided by the agroforestry system. The payment for ecological services (Carbon trading) is a new concept and is currently being followed in some developed countries. The National Agroforestry Policy 2014 writes a new chapter in history and Agroforestry becomes a low hanging fruit for farmers.