ORIGINS OF AGROFORESTRY

Trees have been used in cropping system since the beginning of agriculture. In an account of the origins of life, the Bible (Gen.2:8-9) describes gardens where all kinds of trees grew, providing both beauty and food. This is perhaps one of the first descriptions of multipurpose tree use in an agroforestry system. Brownrigg (1985) reviews literature that documents paintings, papyrus illustration, and textual descriptions of home gardens in the Near East dating back to 300 B.C., suggesting that these home gardens in originated as early as 7000 B.C. Ancient Indians scriptures (ca. 1000 B.C.) also mention the multipurpose tree species Prosopis cineraria Mac Pride as a fodder source. Agricultural writers og the Roman era described a wide variety of agroforestry systems that included livestock and use of tree crops for food and fodder.

In the much of tropics, human underwent a transition from hunting/gathering to the use of domesticated plants and livestock. As a part of this process they cut down trees, cleared the debris by burning, and sowes crops in the ash-enriched soil. Thus was born slash-and-burn agriculture, a primary forerunner of present-day agroforestry and practice that may have originated in the Neolithic period, around 7000 B.C. The combination of soil impoverishment arising from soil erosion and nutrient extraction through crop harvests and the invasion of aggressive and hardy weeds forces farmers to move to new sites to repeat the process in a system widely known as shifting cultivation.

Shifting cultivation and its complexity has been well described in many parts of the world. Where population densities are low, long forest fallows are still possible, and the system may remain sustainable. However, population pressures usually forces the shortening of fallows, resulting in continued decline in productivity and site degradation. This is one of the major reasons for the current widespread governmental abhorrence of shifting cultivation.

Shifting cultivation was a common practice in Europe untul at least the Middle Ages. In some cases tree species were sown or planted before, along with, or after the sowing of the agricultural crop. This system was widely used in Finland up to the end of the nineteenth century and was practiced in a few areas of Germany as late as 1920s.

Mixed gardens have also been a form of agroforestry practiced for centuries in Central America. In Asia, the home garden was mentioned in the Javanese charter of 860 A.D.

Near the end of the nineteenth century, a system of teak establishment was developed in Burma that was to be known as taungya, or literally, hill cultivation. This system spread to other parts of the British Empire and by the year 1896 had been introduced to what are now South Africa, India, and Bangladesh.

The late 1800s saw a recognition of the difficulties that face foresters and forest administrators. The difficulties in raising saplings under grazing conditions in India provided enough cause for concern that schemes for the use of living fences were developed to protect valuable tree and food crops.