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Agro Forestry Plantations |
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Agro-forestry system is a land use system in sustainable agriculture wherein traditional agricultural activities are combined with forestry practices. Benefits of agro-forestry include higher yields, increasing and/or diversifying farm income, as well as improving soil and water quality and reducing erosion and flood damage.
Agro-forestry is the most economical, sustainable and stable alternative for ecological security of land production system. Whereas the average productivity of plantations in forest and wastelands is approximately 4 to 5 cubic meter per hectare per year, agro-forestry plantations in irrigated land ensure average productivity of 10 to 20 cubic meters per hectare per year at a relatively low input cost. Thus, by all aspects, agro-forestry is a cheap, prOfitable and stable alternative.
Agro-forestry has been practiced around the world in varying forms for thousands of years, and as such it works well with the low-input land-management systems that are common throughout the developing world.
The major objective of agro-forestry is to optimize production and economic returns per unit area, while respecting the principle of sustainable development. In order to attain this objective, certain agro-forestry models have been evolved and standardized, combining optimum land use system with tree-agriculture-livestock production system to give maximum economic returns, simultaneously or sequentially. However, the models have to be designed in such a manner so as to make them technologically feasible, ecologically sustainable economically viable, and socially acceptable. Poplar and Eucalyptus are two most popular species for Agro-forestry. |
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