Definition and Concept of Agroforestry

Definition and Concept of Agroforestry

The word agroforestry is derived from the combination of two words that is agro, meaning "agriculture crops," and forestry, meaning "forest trees”. It is a farming method that allows trees and shrubs to grow along with agriculture crops and/or livestock, that means blending agriculture and forestry in the same production system.

Agroforestry is a system which is not only ecologically rational but also economically sound. In recent years, agroforestry is developed as a science for improving the productivity, profitability and sustainability of production of available lands, and soil conservation.

Agroforestry has three components that are forestry (trees), agriculture (crops) and livestock (animals)/fodder and forage. The combination of these components is known as agroforestry. However, the definitions of agroforestry given by various scientists and institutions are as follows:

 ICRAF (1982) defined agroforestry system as a land use system that integrates trees with agriculture crops, and or animals simultaneously or sequentially to get higher productivity, more economic returns and better social and ecological benefits on a sustainable yield basis than are obtainable from mono-culture on the same unit of land, especially under conditions of low levels of technological inputs on marginal sites.

 A collective name for land use systems and technologies where woody perennials (trees, shrubs, palm, bamboo etc) are deliberately used in the same land management unit as agriculture crops and or animals either in same form of spatial arrangement or temporal sequence (Lundgren and Raintree, 1983).

 In simple word, agroforestry is a science that combines trees and agriculture crops (food, fruit, vegetables, fodder and forage etc) together in the same land at the same time.