AGROFORESTRY DEFINED

Among the many efforts to define the art and science of agroforestry, the following is perhaps the most appropriate (adapted from Nair,1984) :

Agroforestry is a land use that involves deliberate retention, introduction, or mixture of trees or aother woody perennials in crop/animal production fields to benefit from the resultant ecological and economic interactions.

Efforts to define agroforestry began in the mid-1970s and evolved rapidly as studies began on the diversity and scope of agroforestry practices. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the field of agroforestry suffered from a surfeit of definitions and a general lack of common understanding caused by a paucity of hard information. These early struggles to define a broad new area of study have resulted in a conceptual understanding from which to examine complex systems and practices. At least one other early definition summarizes the basis for the study of agroforestry (Bene et al., 1977) :

Agroforestry is a sustainable management system for land that increases total production, combines agricultural crop, tree crops and forest plants and or animals simultaneously, and applies management practices that are compatible with the cultural patterns of the local population.