Making farms sustainable and climate-smart with agroforestry: two stories from Smart Tree-Invest
Making farms sustainable and climate-smart with agroforestry: two stories from Smart Tree-Invest
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Agroforestry in Songco, Lantapan, Bukidnon, Philippines. Photo: Eduviges S. Saway/ICRAF
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Adapted from two Agroforestry World Blogs
Agroforestry in Songco, Lantapan, Bukidnon, Philippines. Photo: Eduviges S. Saway/ICRAF
Farmers are facing more challenges than ever: the need to feed a growing world population, land degradation and the effects of climate change – to only name a few. The situation calls for stakeholders to put all hands on deck, and researchers have to play an important part here. Scientists working under the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) are keen to see that their work has an impact. One example for this impact can be witnessed on farms in several Asian countries, under the research program Climate-smart, Tree-based Co-investment in Adaptation and Mitigation in Asia (Smart Tree-Invest). Smart Tree-Invest is supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development and FTA. The program comprises projects as divers as watershed management in Sulawesi, Indonesia, and tree-based farming in the Philippines and Vietnam. The stories are told by Sacha Amaruzaman and Amy Cruz.
Indonesia: Combining ecosystem services and sustainable farming
Photo: World Agroforestry Centre
An inspiring story comes from Sulawesi, Indonesia. To help maintain the health of watersheds in Buol District, Central Sulawesi Province, a working group has been established to oversee ‘co-investment’ schemes that will be implemented through a collaboration between the World Agroforestry Centre, Buol district government and villages.
Co-investment is one of the key features of the Smart Tee-Invest model. The concept of ‘co-investment in ecosystem services’ stems from research into schemes that reward people for managing ecosystem services. Such schemes typically see poor farmers and communities compensated with financial and non-financial rewards for managing, and improving, the services provided by ecosystem services under their care. Rather than simply being a market-based instrument, ‘co-investment’ has more flexible contractual conditions that are based on collaboration and mutual trust between the people involved.
In the special situation of Buol, the working group opted for a publicly financed system, because most of the direct beneficiaries of ecosystem services in these watersheds are poor and there are no beneficiaries from the private sector. Hence, co-investment by the public sector was more feasible rather than payments from direct users of the ecosystem services.
Watershed in Buol district. Source: World Agroforestry Centre
In a series of workshops in 2015, the working group in Buol designed an organizational structure, goals, working areas, coordination mechanism, and a work plan for the scheme that is relevant for six main watersheds, two of which are also Smart Tree-Invest research sites.
Led by the district development planning office (Bappeda), the group consists of representatives from government bodies responsible for watershed management, such as the forestry, agriculture, plantations, environment, extension, sea and fisheries, public works, and energy and mining agencies.
The Buol and Matinan watersheds have priority for the project. They cover upstream to coastal areas of Buol District and provide important ecosystem services, yet are threatened because forests are cut down to make way for monocultures and other unsustainable agricultural land use.
In the project’s first year, FTA researchers were busy identifying socio-economic and biophysical conditions. Based on their data, the co-investment schemes are developed that will encourage climate-smart, tree-based agriculture. The main scheme being developed is better tree-and-crop management, particularly for cocoa and rice, but the project also looks at the rehabilitation of degraded mangroves.
This will ultimately improve the livelihoods of smallholding farmers in the watersheds and make them more resilient to the effects climate change.
Philippines: Smart farmers adopt agroforestry for climate-smart farming
Vulnerable area in Kibangay, Lantapan, Bukidnon, Philippines. Photo: – Ophelia Rosario/ICRAF
To make its research on agroforestry more effective, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) is committed promote agroforestry practices among farmers and practitioners. The researchers are convinced that training farmers in sustainable, tree-based farming can help them adapt to climate change.
A key approach here is Conservation Agriculture With Trees (CAWT) is a which combines the principles of Conservation Agriculture with Agroforestry.
Conservation agriculture is characterized by three principles namely minimum tillage, maximum soil cover and crop rotation and/or association. The emphasis is on the protection of the top soil layer which is responsible for sustaining crop life but is also the most vulnerable to erosion and degradation.
Agroforestry can be defined as the inclusion of trees in farming systems and their management in rural landscapes to enhance productivity, profitability, diversity and ecosystem sustainability.
Under Smart Tree-Invest, farmers and agricultural practioners in general are trained in tree-based farming systems such as
vegetable agroforestryrubber agroforestrycocoa agroforestryRainwater harvesting. Photo: International RiversConservation agriculture with trees. Photo: Agustin Mercado Jr/ICRAF
and the use of animal-built embankments and animal-drawn scrapers.
A typical such workshop took place in Lantapan, Bukidnon Province, in the Philippines in 2015. Some 35 farmers, some of them representatives of their organizations, and agricultural practitioners were trained in tree-based agriculture so that they, or rather their practices, became “climate-smart” and could plan how integrate the hew systems into their own farms and villages.
Listening to the farmers voices showed that they understand the crucial role of agroforestry: “For me, trees on farms are important because they help in conserving nutrients in the soil and protecting our cash crops,” one of them stated. And others were so convinced that they promised: “I will practice what I learned from this training and share it with the other farmers in my village.”
The community Jeneponto in the province of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, has officially begun to implement a sustainable livelihoods and conservation strategy that was facilitated by the Agroforestry and Forestry in Sulawesi project. Amy Lumban Gaol, the World Agroforestry Centre’s Communications Coordinator for the Agroforestry and Forestry in Sulawesi (AgFor) project, witnessed the launch of the strategy.
“Planting trees is one way of increasing land and environmental conservation,” says Iksan Iskandar as a fitting argument for a tree-planting ceremony. “This is not the first time I’ve planted trees with, and for, communities and it definitely won’t be the last,” adds the head of Jeneponto District, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
Jeneponto is the third district in Indonesia to officially implement a strategy for sustainable livelihoods and conservation, facilitated by the Agroforestry and Forestry in Sulawesi (AgFor): Linking Knowledge to Action project, funded by Global Affairs Canada and the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.
AgFor staff gives instruction to farmers on how to do grafting, South Sulawesi. Photo by: World Agroforestry Centre/AgFor South Sulawesi team
AgFor first established the program in Bantaeng and Bulukumba districts in 2012, then moved on to Jeneponto and neighbouring Gowa in 2014. Through training in agroforestry and forestry, AgFor helps farmers to improve their livelihoods.
The Jeneponto launch took place in Rumbia, one of the driest villages of the district, in March 2016, which was chosen to market its tourism potential.
“Even though Rumbia is dry and hot, there are many places of interest: waterfalls, mountain peaks, beautiful views and nice people,” says Rahman Mas’ud, head of Rumbia Sub-district. “The symbolism of the ceremony with our district head will inspire the community to also plant more trees,” he hopes.
Jeneponto district, Sulawesi, on Google Maps
‘Transforming the landscape of this district obviously requires a lot of effort,” District head Iskandar adds.
“We have begun to see a change of mindset in our community towards maintaining natural resources. We now know that Rumbia is a good place for agroforestry. We can see many new seedlings starting to green the way to the waterfalls nearby. This is a manifestation of the hard work already carried out by everyone.”
Pratiknyo Purnomosidhi, AgFor coordinator for South Sulawesi Province, agreed that, “Rumbia has a lot of hidden potential: natural resources, smart villagers and cooperative government. But the most difficult thing is to change people’s mindset. We started with a small group in Ujung Bulu Village, which has become a good example for others. It obviously takes time and much effort but together we can change our mindsets and our landscapes.”
Soils, governance, big data and 99 tropical countries: Best reads in forests, trees and agroforestry
Soils, governance, big data and 99 tropical countries: Best reads in forests, trees and agroforestry
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To understand climate change it is important to look at soils and emissions. Photo: World Agroforestry Centre
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In our last newsletter we asked you to send us your suggestions for the “best reads” of research on forests, trees and agroforestry from last year. You presented us with an interesting selection of papers and topics that is hopefully inspiring to others. The post below is original content from the scientists.
We encourage you to continue sending us your tips whenever you are especially pleased with a work you or your colleagues were involved in.
Fergus Sinclair, coordinator of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry Flagship Livelihood Systems wants to give these three publications a special consideration:
The first paper in the list already won an award at ICRAF’s science week for challenging orthodoxy, Sinclair writes about his choice. “It reveals that farmers in Western Kenya adopt a wide variety of tree species in a wide variety of farm and landscape niches and explains why different farmers chose different options in relation to their resource endowments.”
The second paper is likely to become the most prominent. It proposes a new unified theory of empowerment and applies this to devolution of forest governance in Kenya, showing imbalances in transfer of powers and control of local forest management bodies, together with suggestions on what can be done to improve this.
Genetic diversity, fruit trees and restoration
Native tree nursery in Colombia, the seedlings are used for land restoration. Photo: Bioversity International/C.Alcazar Caisedo
Laura Snook, coordinator of FTA Flagship 2 on tree resources, wants to draw attention to several publications that are exemplary for managing tree resources. She argues that high levels of download of publications reveal not only the importance of these topics, but also the value of making available information at no cost, through the internet.
Of particular importance is the book Genetic considerations in ecosystem restoration using native tree species, co-published with FAO, which covers theoretical and practical issues in ecosystem restoration, one of the major international challenges and opportunities of our time, a goal which countries around the world have pledged to attain.
This review highlights the value of using native species, which, among other things, promote more biodiversity than exotics. It explains the importance of matching species to site, the challenges of sourcing seed and the need to ensure that seed sources encompass sufficient genetic diversity to allow restored forests to become self-sustaining, able to regenerate successfully and survive under projected changes in climate.
Tropical fruit tree species and climate change is a publication that analyzes the impact of climate change on fruit trees that are important for nutrition and commerce, and how farmers can adapt their production.
Conservation of fruit tree diversity in Central Asia: policy options and challenges, also available in Russian, summarizes the factors that threaten local diversity of fruit trees (apple, apricot, peach, pear, plum, grape, almond, pistachio, pomegranate, and fig) in the five Central Asian countries where their diversity is highest (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan). It outlines measures for developing and implementing policies to ensure their conservation and future availability.
The diversity of cacao. Photo: X. Scheldemann/Bioversity International
These methods are of wide interest because they can be applied to other species as well. Since these and many other fruit producing tree species that are important for nutrition and livelihoods are only semi-domesticated, or are harvested from the wild, knowing the extent and distribution of their diversity is important not only to guide conservation, but also to highlight the potential to select and domesticate individuals with preferred traits, something which has not yet been done for most tree species.
Climate, emissions and governance
To understand climate change it is important to look at soils and emissions. Photo: World Agroforestry Centre
Lou Verchot, former Director, Forests & Environment Research at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), has two recent papers that he is very pleased with and would like to see considered.
In the early 1990s, Flavio Luizão published a paper on Amazonian pastures that received low doses of fertilizer, which showed elevated N2O emissions and they suggested that tropical deforestation might lead to 1Tg of extra N2O emission to the atmosphere.
Michael Keller presented another paper that showed short-lived N2O pulse in a chronosequence. For a while, global N2O budgets included Luizão’s number. Eric Davidson sent me to the Amazon to make some measurements and he sent two other postdoctoral students to Costa Rica and Puerto Rico and some of our results upheld Keller et al., and supported the hole-in-the-pipe model.
We also attempted a global assessment using the Trace Gas Network (TRAGNET), that again supported HIP, but it was equivocal on land-use change effects. Many of us have been working over the past 20 years to build up better understanding of temporal and spatial variations in emissions.
Jeffrey van Gent’s paper provides a rigorous assessment of the data gathered from all corners of the tropics, quantified the average impact of land use change on these emissions, looked at the robustness of several theories of spatial and temporal variation, and answered the question about land-use change that we set out to answer over 20 years ago, pretty definitively.
One focus of FTA research lies on the effects of climate change in the Amazon. Photo: Marco Simola/CIFOR
When Walter Baethgen presented about decadal climate variability to the FTA group in 2012, I asked whether the variations were predictable. He felt that beyond the knowledge that drought years and pluvial years tend to occur closer to each other in time than would be expected if it were truly a random process, he was pessimistic that we could predict at decadal time scales.
Katia Fernandes’s paper overturned this judgement and showed that drought/pluvial frequency in the Western Amazon region was controlled by the north-south gradient in sea surface temperature, which varies slowly over the course of decades. Using this index, one could predict the probability (frequency) for a given decade of droughts/pluvials. The paper also suggested that long-term climate change affected the severity of recent droughts in the region.
Maria Brockhaus, senior scientist with CIFOR, has special praise for Transaction costs, power, and multi-level forest governance in Indonesia (Gallemore et al. 2015). Published in Ecological Economics, it is speaking to a highly relevant topic, namely power and transaction costs in multilevel governance systems, when participating in larger policy processes such as REDD. It represents a complex analysis, as we combined two datasets from different levels, and employed highly advanced methods for analysis such as Exponential random graph models (ERGM).
The second paper, Deadlock or Transformational Change? Exploring Public Discourse on REDD+ across Seven Countries by Di Gregorio et al. 2015, published in Global Environmental Politics. This paper is a fascinating multi-country comparative analysis and investigates who and why or why not speaks transformational language in the REDD+ policy arena. It reflects a very unique dataset from the GCS project, which incorporates seven countries and multiple years of data.
Forest monitoring in Indonesia. Photo: Mokhamad Edliadi/CIFOR
Martin Herold from research partner Wageningen University, Netherlands, proposes two papers on forest monitoring and deforestation. The first one is Assessing change in national forest monitoring capacities of 99 tropical countries by Erika Romijn et al., which revealed a marked improvement in national forest monitoring capacity in tropical countries over the past decade.
We analyzed data from 99 countries in the tropics and sub-tropics of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) most recent Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) to evaluate each country’s ability to monitor its overall change in forest area.
Also assessed were countries’ capacities to carry out on-the-ground studies of the species and number of trees, forest biomass, soils, and other factors, and their ability to report on the different forest carbon pools, rating capacities on a scale from “very good” to “low.”
A comparison with findings from 10 years ago revealed big improvements. In 2005, 69% of the assessed tropical forests had “good” or “very good” monitoring and remote sensing capacities of forest area change. This portion increased to 83% in 2015, covering nearly 1700 million hectares of forests in 2015. Ability to conduct field-based inventories also increased, from 38% in 2005 to 66% in 2015.
Improvements were also seen country by country. In 2015, 54 of the 99 countries had good or very good forest area change monitoring, up from 37 in 2005. That means these countries were able to produce their own forest change maps. Bottom line: the investments and willingness of countries to improve their national forest monitoring systems has significantly increased in the previous years.
Deforestation in Acre, Brazil. Photo: Kate Evans/CIFOR
The second one, Land use patterns and related carbon losses following deforestation in South America, by Niki de Sy et al., provides the first systematic study on land use patterns and related carbon losses following deforestation in South America. The paper quantifies proximate drivers of deforestation and related carbon losses in South America based on remote sensing time series in a systematic, spatially explicit manner.
Deforestation areas were derived from the 2010 global remote sensing survey of the FAO Forest Resource Assessment. To assess proximate drivers, land use following deforestation was assigned by visual interpretation of high-resolution satellite imagery.
To estimate gross carbon losses from deforestation, default Tier 1 biomass levels per country and eco-zone were used. Pasture is the dominant driver of forest area (71.2 %) and related carbon loss (71.6 %) in South America, followed by commercial cropland (14 % and 12.1 % resp.).
Hotspots of deforestation due to pasture occur in northern Argentina, western Paraguay, and along the arc of deforestation in Brazil were they gradually move into higher biomass forests causing additional carbon losses. Deforestation driven by commercial cropland increased in time, with hotspots occurring in Brazil (Mato Grosso), Northern Argentina, eastern Paraguay and central Bolivia.
Infrastructure, such as urban expansion and roads, contributed little as proximate driver of forest area loss (1.7 %).
The paper contributes to the understanding of drivers of deforestation and related carbon losses in South America, which are comparable at the national, regional and continental level. In addition, it supports the development of national REDD+ interventions and forest monitoring systems, and provides valuable input for statistical analysis and modeling of underlying drivers of deforestation.
Landscapes, dry forests and big data
Climate smart village Mạ village, Vinh Kien, northern Vietnam. Photo: Georgina Smith/CIAT
Meine van Noordwijk, chief science adviser at the World Agroforestry Centre and FTA Flagship 3 coordinator, shared a comprehensive selection of publications from his stomping ground, starting with Climate-Smart Landscapes: Multifunctionality In Practice.
The book gives an overview of the search for landscape multifunctionality, in concepts and in practical examples of work on the ground. It has been well received by the practitioner and educational communities involved, for “setting a high standard of analysis, providing substance to terms that have become popular but are at risk of losing meaning”.
For a long time the debate on payments for ecosystem services has been seen as dealing with a trade off between ‘efficiency’ (economic, technical orientation) and ‘fairness’ (social, rights-oriented approach). In a major synthesis of ten years of action research, the paper Fairly efficient, efficiently fair: Lessons from designing and testing payment schemes for ecosystem services in Asia argues that there is a middle-ground in this debate, and that most of what actually works is best described as a form of negotiated co-investment, rather than Payment for Ecosystem Services, as originally defined.
Linking knowledge with action is now known as ‘boundary work’ and needs to deal with multiple perspectives on credibility, salience and legitimacy. The paper Boundary work: Knowledge co-production for negotiating payment for watershed services in Indonesia reviews lessons learnt across watersheds in Indonesia, where negotiations helped overcome serious conflicts through various forms of co-investment.
The concept of ‘indigenous’ has become widely accepted as basis for specific concerns and rules in forest policy development, but it has complex roots itself. The paper Self-Identification of Indigenous People in Post-Independence Indonesia: A Historical Analysis in the Context of REDD+ reviews where and how the way some people link to ‘territories’ became acceptable as part of this discourse, but how other groups, without such clear links were disadvantaged. A nuanced perspective on common but differentiated responsibility is called for.
Part of the literature attributes a strong inclination to conserving environmental integrity to women rather than men. The paper Land use change and shifts in gender roles in central Sumatra, Indonesia describes empirical evidence from Sumatra contrasting with that hypothesis: women were more inclined to engage with external oil palm investment in their landscapes then men, when tested separately in a role-play simulation game of landscape dynamics. The debate continues…
The long-term changes in soil carbon stocks due to conversion of forests or grasslands to oil palm plantations remain unclear, with some studies claiming increases, and other decreases. The paper Carbon neutral? No change in mineral soil carbon stock under oil palm plantations derived from forest or non-forest in Indonesia is based on the largest data set systematically collected across oil palm plantations in Indonesia. It shows that in the long term carbon neutrality can be achieved where good agricultural practices are implemented.
The dry forest and woodlands of Africa cover 54% of the continent and support some 64% of its population through the provision of a wide range of environmental goods and services, Burkina Faso. Photo: Daniel Tiveau/CIFOR
Two papers using “big data” should also be considered, because they represent the type of broad scale of scientific comparison within the CGIAR, he argues.
Samson Foli, Associate Professional Officer at CIFOR, suggests just one publication, but one that in his opinion “underpins the direction, which FTA research should be taking”.
Global dry forests: a prologue, he argues, is relevant in addressing the urgent need for research on protecting dry forests at a global scale. “Dry forests are under-researched even though they encompass a significant amount of the tropical forest cover,” he writes.
“The paper highlights the importance of dry forest research due to the socio-economic relevance of its resources as food, fodder and safety net for the people living in such ecosystems.”
Natural resources, forest certification and inclusive green growth
Pablo Pacheco, coordinator of the Flagship on Global Governance, Trade and Investment of the CGIAR FTA wants to highlight three papers from his research area.
A major debate on sustainable development is related to the economic and environmental implications of land-based investments. A paper focused on natural resource privatization in Sub-Saharan Africa and the challenges for inclusive green growth, argues that, since natural resource endowment has long been the primary source of comparative advantage for most African economies, natural resource-based investments may play a significant role in shaping the development of ‘inclusive green growth’ (IGG). This paper stresses that realizing meaningful IGG in Africa requires to deviate from existing development trajectories, which requires of transformative legal, institutional and economic reform.
Sustainability standards are an important effort to advance towards sustainable management of natural resources, and particularly forest management. While these initiatives represent opportunities, they also face limits to deliver the outcomes they promise, and their outcomes have to be seen in their interactions with state regulatory frameworks. The paper on forest certification and legality initiatives in the Brazilian Amazon: lessons for effective and equitable forest governance suggests that efforts focusing on the timber supply chain are more effective and favor large producers and concentrated supply chains destined for external markets, while inhibit local benefit-capture, stressing the importance to prioritize the generation of local benefit from locally adapted production systems.
Another important debate on global trade and sustainability relates to the role that corporate governance has on the uptake of sustainability standards. An insightful paper on deciphering Corporate Governance and Environmental Commitments among Southeast Asian Transnationals: Uptake of Sustainability Certification suggests that financial factors, such as ownership structure and flexibility in decision-making, may have a fundamental role in understanding the adoption of sustainable standard systems in the corporate sector. This is based on the analysis of four major Asian agribusiness transnationals comprising about 931 companies. In addition, this paper explores as a way forward the convergence of environmental sustainability with long-term family business sustainability.
Further recommendations come from Ramni Jamnadass, Global Research Program leader at ICRAF:
A shift towards monoculture plantations and higher chemical use is of great concern to many in the Mekong region, particularly due to the impact this is having on food security and health.
Farmers who have resisted monoculture cropping, and opted to maintain or create mixed-species agroforestry systems, are benefiting from income and food security and reduced reliance on fertilizer and pesticides.
“Rubber trees are invading fruit orchards and watershed forest,” explains Cheardsak Kuaraska, vice-dean of the Faculty of Technology and Community Development at Thaksin University in Phattalung, Thailand. “Oil palm is invading rice paddy and lowland forests, especially peat forests.” He warns that southern Thailand is now faced with a food security problem.
Kuaraska estimates that rubber and oil palm now cover 33 per cent of the province of Phattalung in Thailand. Not only are they replacing food crops, he says, they are impacting on ecosystems; farmers are using higher amounts of fertilizer which is causing damage to the environment and health problems.
Lamphoune Xyvongsa from the Faculty of Forestry at the National University of Lao explains that it is becoming more difficult for people to gather food from the forest because many natural forests have been converted to plantations.
Kuaraska and Xyvongsa are among a group of researchers and farmers from Thailand, Lao, Cambodia and Viet Nam who appear in a series of 13 short films produced by the World Agroforestry Centre, discussing land-use problems in their countries and the role agroforests play in solving them.
Both believe agroforestry offers a sustainable alternative for farmers in the Mekong region; providing them with year-round income and a diversity of foods and other products while also offering many environmental benefits.
“How can we expand this knowledge to other farmers so that they can change their practice from monoculture to mixed-species?” asks Kuaraska. “Research is still necessary. We need to collaborate so that we can compare data on how one kind of farming practices is better than other kinds.
Farmers Chamni Yodkaewruang and Charus Kaewkong from Phattalung, Thailand and Pasith Pimpramote, from Vientiane in Laos, say agroforestry gives them different products at different times which can be consumed and or sold.
“Diversity creates everything,” says Yodkaewruang. “It maintains human lives.” His mixed-species orchards include fig, Alstonia, oak, Artocarpus elasticus and ironwood.
Kaewkong has replaced the rubber trees which grew around his home with durian, mangosteen, coconut and others. “We are never hungry,” he says.
Among Kaewkong’s fruit trees, he grows edible ferns and bamboo. “When my kids come back from the city they take them [bamboo shoots] to Surat Thani province. They can make 40, 50 or 70 Baht at a time. For the neighbours, if they want the bamboo shoots to make curry, they can come and take them.”
“The tall trees, the kids and grandkids can use them for house construction.”
“If I grow jujubes and if the price is down this year or there are pests, resulting in a low yield, I have another crop to sell,” Pimpramote explains. “If I grow jackfruit and the jackfruit prices are not good, I will sell tamarind.”
Witoon Chamroen, another farmer from Phattalung Province has created a rubber ‘jungle’ based on his ancestors’ knowledge. He treats his old rubber trees as ‘nursery’ trees and this mixed system gives him edible plants, material for house construction and for energy. His rubber trees still produce more latex than younger trees.
“Trees are renewable, they will never run out if we know how to use them,” says Chamroen. “It’s about creating biodiversity, becoming self-sufficient. If this is done, you will not be poor.”
In his quest to prove that multi-species cropping systems are beneficial, Naris Khamthisri, a farmer from Sakon Nakhon in Thailand has gathered information from researchers, experts and farmers from all over Thailand. He strongly believes agroforestry provides economic security, food security, food safety, job security and health.
“Farmers can earn daily, monthly, yearly incomes” from these systems and “because we produce ourselves we know how the food is produced,” stresses Khamthisri.
“If we practice agroforestry, there will be less use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Our good health will follow. Good health is difficult to accomplish, and it cannot be bought.”
The use of chemicals in food production is of particular concern to Pongnapha Srina, a farmer from Nan Province in Thailand.
“When I grew maize, I used my income to buy food from the market. There was no way to know whether there was any pesticide residue in the food from the market,” she says. “I decided to grow my own. I can eat whatever I like. It is like I have my own fresh market. I can save what I used to spend on buying food. I can also eat pesticide-free food.”
The series of films give an insight into how farmers from across the Mekong region have been motivated to practice agroforestry and the many benefits they derive from it.
Producing bioenergy with agroforestry could be a model for Indonesia: Tony Simons
Producing bioenergy with agroforestry could be a model for Indonesia: Tony Simons
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Firewood is the main energy source of Wae Rebo people in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Photo: Aulia Erlangga /CIFOR
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Oil palm and agroforestry experimental plot in Brazil, Year 5. Photo: Debora Castellani
At the Renewable Energy Forum in Bali in October 2015, the World Agroforestry Centre and the Indonesian government agreed to strengthen research on renewable energy. Bioenergy will also have a more prominent role in the new phase of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, in connection with research on climate change and forests. With this in mind, Robert Finlayson spoke to Tony Simons, Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre, about wonder crops, the role of smallholders and the benefits of agroforestry for the production of bioenergy.
Bioenergy is certainly a buzzword. And the danger with buzzwords is that everyone can use them without having a clear idea what they really mean. How would you describe bioenergy?
Fuel is hydrocarbons and food is carbohydrates; similar molecules are at work to release energy. These molecules release energy that powers our transport and industries, lights our homes and also feeds our bodies. We see food as more than just calories or carbohydrates but also as appropriate nutrition to maximise health and an active life. So we must now learn to look at fuel as more than just the combustion of hydrocarbons but as also providing sustenance of livelihoods and environmental services.
An important part of achieving this can be found in something as common as a plant’s leaf. It is the best solar panel we have and, while not as efficient as photovoltaic cells, it has an extraordinary battery that outperforms any semiconductor thanks to the chlorophyll molecule, which converts sunlight into energy ready for us to harness.
Firewood is the main energy source of Wae Rebo people in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Photo: Aulia Erlangga /CIFOR
The World Agroforestry Centre and the Indonesian government want to collaborate on research into renewables. Indonesia has ambitious plans in this area. ICRAF focuses a lot of its work on smallholders and their livelihoods. What would investment in bioenergy mean for them?
The Government of Indonesia plans to have 23% of its energy supplies from renewables by 2025, which also contributes to Sustainable Development Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. It is, indeed, a great achievement that the world now has the 17 Goals and a common deadline of 2030.
What is needed, especially in a transitional economy like Indonesia, are policies that are harmonious with other parts of government, that are integrated across sectors and that are enforced. This is how you reduce risks for smallholders as well as large firms.
And whatever system, or systems, is decided, it needs to be attractive to investors, both big and small. The interplay between public and private institutions and smallholders is crucial.
But many rural communities are asking, “What about now?” To address all of these issues at once, we need a triple win on energy, livelihoods and land rehabilitation. How can the government convince villagers that renewable energy is the solution to their problems?
Trees should be seen as important contributors to reaching the bioenergy target. And agroforestry systems are a means for smallholders to not only produce energy but also food, medicines and building materials that improve their livelihoods and also contribute to carbon storage and emissions reduction.
In Sri Lanka, there are wood-fuelled gasifiers of 5–50 Kw. Tokyo Electric installed a 10 MW plant in Sri Lanka and another eight are commissioned. Wood biomass contributes over a third of primary energy in India.
Indonesia already has problems of deforestation with oil palm production. Where will the land to produce renewable energy come from?
A recent report by the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment found that by 2050, only 50–200 million hectares of land would be needed to produce 20% of the planet’s primary energy from bioenergy. This isn’t a huge amount, especially given the large amount of degraded and under-used land in the world. So land availability isn’t the problem, but rather our land-use choices are.
Oil palm is has been linked to the destruction of forests and biodiversity, but it is also a very efficient bioenergy plant. So how do we balance the benefit and the risks from such a crop?
There have been problems for smallholders relying totally on a single crop for their livelihoods. If global prices for the commodity fall, as is the case in 2015, so do farmers’ incomes.
If we can diversify, we can improve the situation not only for farmers but for productivity, too. In Brazil, a seven-year experiment has been testing oil palm intercropped with trees and it is proving that such systems can indeed improve livelihoods while also meeting environmental and productivity goals.
In Indonesia, work by the World Agroforestry Centre with farmers and local governments in the province of Jambi in Sumatra has shown that oil palm can be successfully intercropped on peat with indigenous trees.
And there is the concept of ‘livelihoods’ insetting’. Insetting simultaneously addresses consumer concerns about oil-palm sustainability and industry concerns about productivity by embedding sustainable activities directly into a business’s supply chain, leading to the build-up of human capital in the communities involved and improved productivity and environmental dividends.
Beware of so-called miracle crops such as Jatropha. Photo: Jeff Walker/CIFOR
So what is the best bet to produce energy from plants?
We should not be fooled into thinking that one size fits all. There is the risk of looking for the magic solution, whether it be sugarcane, soy, Pongamia, Croton, Miscanthus, Nipa or any of the other candidates.
Experience with other ‘wonder’ plants shows that hype can replace scientific evidence and lead to many failures and disappointments. Choices should be based on solid evidence from experience in the field and include a full life-cycle analysis to ensure that greenhouse-gas reductions are not foiled by gains elsewhere.
We found that with Jatropha, for example, that its development wasn’t based on full carbon accounting and allowed biofuel-importing countries to ignore emissions caused elsewhere. The accounting systems are more complete now.
The plant’s development was also based on land grabbing and concession systems that didn’t respect local rights and decision-making processes. It helped some large players make money but didn’t provide opportunities for local livelihoods to support sustainable growth. In the move from fossil fuels to living fuels, we need to continue to enlighten investors and policy makers, empower local communities and energise action by government and all people interested in the bioenergy landscape.
So you advise against monoculture and ‘wonder crops’. Apart from creating the policy framework for a sustainable bioenergy sector, what else should the government keep in mind?
If the Government of Indonesia wants 23% of their energy from renewables by 2025, of which 10% should come from bioenergy, then those plants have to be in the ground before 2020. We need action to start now.
Researchers are curious, so they want to know what happens, why it is so and where it is different and … to name only a few of their questions. But research is not only there to satisfy scientific curiosity, of course. Results from research on forests, trees and agroforestry are crucial to help solve many of today’s big development problems.
So how do scientists make their work count?
Amy Cruz, communications officer for the World Agroforestry Centre in the Philippines, has tried to answer this key question for the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).
The simple truth is: talk to people and do it from the beginning – also called “stakeholder engagement”.
‘The more you can engage people at the start, the more projects will be successful,” says Tony Bartlett, Program Manager for Forestry at the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
To expand the reach and impact of research projects, scientists have to bring stakeholders fully on board right at the beginning. This needs time and effort.
Photo: Bioversity International/C.Fadda
The project team should understand the perspectives and drivers that push the stakeholders to act the way they do.
It goes without saying that different people have different needs, but this is relevant because it can be addressed by the project if one knows them from the start. And, on the other hand, different abilities of those involved in the research can contribute positively to the project.
There a several good practices for making research more relevant.
Whatever works
Mapping how stakeholders can contribute to projects and their outcomes is increasingly common. By conducting multi-stakeholder workshops, researchers provide platforms for different partners and beneficiaries to discuss and plan activities. The experiences and lessons learned from the project are then shared amongst the stakeholders as the project progresses, making it easier to identify what works in particular situations.
A good example is the Climate-smart, Tree-based, Co-investment in Adaptation and Mitigation in Asia (Smart Tree-Invest) project.
Philippine Farmers of Lantapan attend a workshop on tree-based farming systems. Photo: World Agroforestry Centre/Kharmina Paola Anit-Evangelista
The project team in the Philippines conducted an outcome mapping activity with the Payments for Environmental Services Working Group (PWG) they helped revitalize in the municipality of Lantapan. Another workshop with the PWG sub-group of sellers, as represented by the village leaders and municipal officials, was also conducted to identify ways they could recruit smallholder farmers as beneficiaries of the co-investment scheme the project is developing.
Bringing together actors with different interests can be particularly effective. A new ACIAR-funded project in Uganda and Zambia is engaging private-sector partners in value-chain innovation platforms to improve food security. This involves mining companies and supermarket networks getting together with farmers and development organizations to co-invest in schemes to improve the income farmers get for their produce.
We are the Champions
‘Champions’, who are typically enthusiastic farmers working with the project, are also important in bringing about change through promoting research within communities and to other organizations. They can advocate the use of research outputs such as new techniques and practices.
As more emphasis is being put on scalability of research, requiring the use of context-specific approaches, champions have to play a crucial role here too.
According to Simone Borelli, the agroforestry officer for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), research institutions should have champions not only at community level but also in the major multilateral institutions, like FAO,. Institutional champions, especially high-level ones, help embed research in development and expand options in a broad range of contexts.
Fergus Sinclair, leader of the Systems Science Domain at the World Agroforestry Centre and coordinator of the FTA livelihoods research, puts emphasis on widening the range of stakeholders.
Think big… or broad
Photo: Chris Griffith
Managing ecosystem services on the ground no longer only means providing decision support for a few key policy makers, he explains. Researchers have to develop support tools for decision making that will serve a broader range of actors. This includes ecosystem-service providers, who are often farmers, intermediaries and, thirdly, those who receive the benefits, such as clean water, reduced flood risk or affordable food.
From the start, researchers also should consider what comes after the project, i.e. exit strategies. With a viable exit strategy, research is a catalyst for durable development that can be maintained locally. Otherwise there may be a risk of dependence on researchers.
So the take away? Only if stakeholders are empowered, research will help them make informed decisions and share their learning from projects with others.
Women and men in tropical dry forests: a preliminary review
Women and men in tropical dry forests: a preliminary review
10 March, 2016
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by Carol Colfer (CIFOR), Marlene Elias (Bioversity International) and Ramni Jamnadass (ICRAF)
From a broad review of 670 publications on gender and forests, ~130 were found to address the world’s dry forests. These were examined with the intent to extract gendered social, cultural, political and economic patterns of relevance in such forests. Seven interrelated themes recurred in this literature: 1) population pressure, 2) migration, 3) intra-familial and inter-group conflict, 4) hierarchy and significant power differences, 5) strict gender differentiation, 6) commercialization of crops and NTFPs, and 7) fuelwood collection. Based upon these themes, the uniqueness of each situation and the importance of finetuning any approach to local realities to generate outcomes that can benefit women, we propose four promising ways to enhance the prospects for gender equity in dry forest areas: 1) a strengthening of groups and collective action, 2) explicit challenges to traditional gender norms, 3) a focus on products and spaces that interest women, and 4) addressing migration and population issues. (funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry)
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World Agroforestry Centre
Charus Kaewkong, farmer, of Phattalung Province in Southern Thailand discusses why and how he replaced the rubber trees around his home with fruit trees and the benefits they bring.
Farming Gliricidia and Maize. Photo: Nicolas Vereecken
The new global agenda has one goal: a sustainable Earth. The contribution of agroforestry in achieving this was discussed in detail at Asia-Pacific Forestry Week (APFW), FTA Flagship 3 coordinator Meine van Noordwijk led the charge. This blog by Rob Finlayson gives an account of his presentation and how well his arguments resonated with experts at the conference. The blog was shortened and edited for the FTA website.
‘All the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are interconnected; we can’t achieve one without the others,’ says Meine van Noordwijk, chief science advisor with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and coordinator of the landscapes Flagship of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).
He divides the SDGs into six groups and argues that agroforestry relates to all of them:
Agroforestry clearly contributes to the SDGs around poverty reduction (SDG 1) and economic growth (SDG 8) through provision of income from tree products;
For the SDGs on zero hunger (2), good health and well-being (3) and responsible consumption and production (12) agroforestry is very relevant through the provision of nutritious food and all the other benefits that trees can bring to a household;
Clean water and sanitation (6) and life below water (14) link to healthy, agroforested watersheds and coastal agroforests, including mangroves;
Affordable and clean energy (7), industry, innovation and infrastructure (9) and sustainable cities and communities (11) need trees as sources of bioenergy, including by-products from fruit and shade trees. Green cities can be cooled down by trees.
Of course trees feature critically for SDGs 13, keeping climate change in check and 15, conserving biodiversity;
The other SDGs (dealing with issues such as conflict, equity, transparency and gender), relate to the so-called ‘soft’ side of agroforestry, which is about people and their interactions with each other and the environment.
A farmer harvests plantain from a rubber-based agroforest. Photo: ICRAF
To achieve the SDGs, ‘we need to combine knowledge systems’, explains van Noordwijk: Knowledge can not only come from science, but also has to stem from local and indigenous sources, from the public sector and policy makers, and many others.
‘We need to understand how knowledge is created in each of these arenas and how to use these experiences to change the trajectory our world has been on,’ says van Noordwijk.
Many different types of agroforestry can already be seen around the world: the mechanised row-cropping favoured in the European Union, swidden systems in tropical forests, rice fields surrounded by planted fruit and timber trees.
‘There is no single way to define agroforestry other than: it is the interface between farmers and forests,’ he adds.
How agroforestry can help the SDGs
To meet the SDGs, land productivity in both agriculture and forestry will have to increase. Agroforestry is one of the most efficient ways of using land. As a land-use system in-between forest and open-field agriculture, it can—with appropriate combinations of trees, crops and livestock—provide a range of goods, benefits and services simultaneously, such as nutritious food, renewable energy and clean water while conserving biodiversity. Efficient, multifunctional land use, such as agroforestry, supports ‘sustainable intensification’.
Segregating forest land from agrarian communities leads to conflicts that reduce land productivity and increase inequity. Agroforestry needs to become an institutional response to contested resources, allowing enhancement of gender and social equity. There is no valid method of drawing a line between agriculture and forestry. The only validity is ‘agro + forestry’.
Development challenges are in part the result of the sectoral approach that dominates government systems, with the various SDGs attributable to separate conventions and ministries. Agroforestry as an integrated mindset can help create synergy between the SDGs in multifunctional landscapes, breaking out of the artificially-constructed institutional silos.
Expert from various countries of the region responded positively to Meine van Noordwijk’s arguments.
Imelda Bacudo of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-German Programme on Response to Climate Change in Agriculture and Forestry said it was hard to see the desired convergence of forestry and agriculture, yet this was something that was much needed.
‘We have to move forward on how to merge them’, she urged. ‘What’s preventing us from doing this is that we are challenged by administrative borders. Throughout the region, ministries of agriculture and of forestry are divided or if they are in one ministry they are divided within. We need to address this problem. It’s the biggest challenge we face.’
Nguyen Tuong Van of VNFOREST, Viet Nam, agreed: ‘There are many links between agroforestry and the Sustainable Development Goals and Viet Nam already has a lot of agroforestry models.
But agroforestry still falls between forestry and agriculture. Even though in Viet Nam we have one ministry, the sectors are two different departments and neither takes care of agroforestry. We need to combine these.
But negotiating between departments even in one ministry is a big problem. ICRAF can support countries to do this. Agroforestry should be under one institution. This is important for attracting investment and driving action.’
The same case applies in Indonesia, said Wiratno, Director of Social Forestry Land Preparation of the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry and chairperson of the ASEAN Social Forestry Network secretariat.
‘Sectoral egoism is very big. This is our common challenge. We have an agroforestry program in which we have to support 50,000 ha every year and also deliver state forests to local communities,’ he said, referring to the government program of allocating 5.5 million hectares of forest to local people within the next four years towards a total of 12.7 million hectares by 2020.
Rex Cruz (left) and Hendri Binahon
According to Hendri Binahon, a Philippine farmerand successful practitioner of agroforestry, the greatest challenge is ‘changing the mindset of farmers, extensionists, government officials, policy makers and then we can have agroforestry in most of the landscapes in tropical countries’.
Rex Cruz of the University of the Philippines at Los Baños, thinks that van Noordwijk’s arguments cannot be contested in the face of a growing population and increasing development: ‘It is inevitable we will change the natural face of our landscape. The only question is how far do we want to change it and how can we use agroforestry as a strategy to generate the types of goods and services we demand from the land.’
Dian Sukmajaya of the ASEAN Economic Community Department of the ASEAN Secretariat called on policy makers to change their mindset – and policies in order to overcome landscape segregation. ‘Agroforestry has been practiced for thousands of years, contributes directly to SDG 17 and others, and offers efficient use of land.’
Land-use problems and agroforestry solutions in Thailand
Land-use problems and agroforestry solutions in Thailand
22 February, 2016
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World Agroforestry Centre
Dr Cheardsak Kuaraksa, Vice Dean, Faculty of Technology and Community Development, Thaksin University, Phattalung, Thailand, discusses the land-use problems – particularly from monocultural crops – and the role agroforestry plays in the solutions. A thoughtful and passionate presentation by a committed researcher.
FTA researchers to present achievements at Asia Pacific Forestry Week
FTA researchers to present achievements at Asia Pacific Forestry Week
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L’agriculture est la principale cause de déforestation. Mais elle reste une activité essentielle pour les communautés locales de la Péninsule du Yucatán. Pour lutter contre la déforestation, il est primordial de trouver des alternatives de productions agricoles plus durables.
Photo aérienne prise dans la Péninsule du Yucatán au Mexique
série - « La Forêt du Yucatán vue du ciel »
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The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) will present key achievements at the FAO Asia Pacific Forestry Week 22-26 February in the Philippines.
Participants will have the opportunity to give feedback to the proposal for the next phase of FTA research which is more closely aligned with the Sustainable Devleopment Goals and is just being finalized
The discussion is planned to take place in the evening of Thursday, 25 February, 9pm. Stay tuned to find out about the exact timing and location or contact Meine van Noordwijk at M.vanNoordwijk@cgiar.org
Tentative program (90 minutes):
Meine van Noordwijk, Program Leader in FTA: the FTA research program in the global development landscape — the top 20 questions in forestry
Christopher Martius, Program Leader in FTA: the FTA work program 2017-2020 — options for engagement
Breakout into workgroup sessions: What are the research questions in forestry for the next 6 years?
Plenary: report back from workgroups and discussion “How can participants engage with the FTA program?”
Three of the six FTA partners, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Bioversity International, are co-convening the event.
FTA is working in Asia, Africa and Latin America, from the ‘tree’ to the ‘global’ scale, combining many disciplines and tackling various issues.
The program benefits from long-term connections with selected landscapes, but also works at the national scale. Researchers are striving to understand the different roles forests and all trees play for ecologies, economies and societies.
Impact-driven and innovative, FTA seeks to enhance the management and use of forests, agroforestry and tree genetic resources across the landscape.
The existing cooperation with academic, government, non-governmental and private sector partners is valued and the six FTA centers are keen to explore new partnerships for the second phase.
FTA responds to the urgent need for a strong and sustained research focus on forest management and governance, because of the crucial role forests play in confronting some of the most important challenges of our time: climate change, poverty, and food insecurity.
The research outcomes from this work are already influencing policy-makers and practitioners, for example in designing Payment for Ecosystem Services schemes and in increasing crop yields.
Agroforestry and Forestry in Sulawesi series: Evaluation of the Agroforestry Farmer Field Schools on agroforestry management in South and Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia
Agroforestry and Forestry in Sulawesi series: Evaluation of the Agroforestry Farmer Field Schools on agroforestry management in South and Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia
15 February, 2016
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World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) Southeast Asia Regional Program 2016
Thai farmer describes his mixed rubber garden's origins and benefits
Thai farmer describes his mixed rubber garden’s origins and benefits
09 February, 2016
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By World Agroforestry Centre
Witoon Chamroen, farmer, of Phattalung Province, Thailand, describes how his old rubber trees act as ‘nursery’ trees for the others and still produce more latex than younger trees. An inspiring and passionate talk from a committed and sensitive farmer.
The idea of creating multiple agricultural alternatives for farmers within oil-palm landscapes has attracted interest from large industry players at a conference in Malaysia, the world’s second-biggest producing nation.
Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is one of the most controversial agricultural commodities of our time. To its supporters, it is the ‘golden crop’ that grows smallholders out of poverty and which offers salvation to the global food and energy crisis. For its critics, it is the single biggest driver of the destruction of peatlands and rainforests that accelerates greenhouse-gas emissions, posing a fundamental threat to existence as we know it.
‘Mainly because of consumer concerns, but also because of the realisation that resources are not infinite’, said Faisal Mohd Noor, speaking at the International Palm Oil Congress and Exhibition in Kuala Lumpur in October 2015, ‘the industry is changing’.
Noor, an oil-palm researcher working with the oil-palm sentinel landscape theme of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, met with a warm reception from industry leaders to his research team’s proposal for ‘livelihoods insetting’, which simultaneously addresses consumer concerns about oil-palm sustainability and industry concerns about productivity. ‘Insetting’ involves embedding sustainable activities directly into a business’s supply chain and leads to the build-up of human capital in the communities involved.
Photo: World Agroforestry Centre
A working example of insetting is the African-orphan-crops consortium funded by Mars Inc. Bruno Roche, Mars’ chief economist and Catalyst program managing director, has claimed success for insetting, stating that, ‘We know that investing in the human capital of communities in our sourcing landscapes leads to a higher productivity and profit for us’.
In response to Noor’s presentation, head of certification for the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), Jan van Driel, asked what RSPO could do to help and how it could participate; Faris Adli Shukery, head of marketing with Sime Darby Foods and Beverages, said that the oil-palm industry has been the driving force behind the development of the rural people of Malaysia and Indonesia and livelihood insetting is an interesting concept that would make the contribution of the industry more visible to consumers of palm-oil products.
Speaking on the sidelines after Noor’s presentation, Genting Plantations’ Chew Jit Seng, vice-president for sustainability, stated that insetting was a good idea to pursue, as did International Sustainability and Carbon Certification’s managing director Norbert Schmitz, while the Malaysian Palm Oil Council’s chief executive Dato’ Dr Makhdzir Mardan said it was something to be encouraged with his full support.
‘Insetting isn’t a new idea but is usually only used in the context of mitigating environmental impacts, such as land degradation, biodiversity and climate change. What is new is that we are asking the industry to work together with other partners to set up market structures and functional value chains for other agricultural and forest products’, explained Noor. ‘Put simply, insetting would see the oil-palm industry investing in building alternative agricultural livelihoods’ options for farmers in oil-palm landscapes’.
Research by the World Agroforestry Centre and others has shown that farmers with diverse livelihoods are more resilient towards fluctuating global prices as well as climate shocks. But as well as better serving the smallholding producers of oil palm, insetting also promises to support the main aim of the oil-palm industry.
A villager brings oil palm fruits out from the plantation. Jambi, Indonesia, December, 2010. Photo: Iddy Farmer/CIFOR
‘It’s important to note that insetting isn’t simply a different packaging of corporate social responsibility’, continued Noor. ‘It’s actually directly linked to the industry’s core business: increasing productivity. Farmers who are happier and better off are more likely to produce high palm-oil yields than farmers who eke out a marginal existence’.
Diverse agroforestry systems have been proven to broadly improve farmers’ livelihoods unlike monocultural crops that put farmers at the mercy of market and climate fluctuations.
‘The presentation was just an introduction of the concept to industry,’ explained Noor. ‘However, the message is clear that the palm-oil industry must change its strategy. With forward thinking, such as widespread adoption of insetting, the industry can stop being in defensive mode and prove it is really serious about sustainability.
‘But to do that, the industry has to change itself. One of the biggest challenges is how most people in the industry think about agriculture. The concept of mixed crops, or integrated farming, seems to have almost vanished from the mindset of the agriculturalists I spoke with at the conference. So it is critically important to get the industry leaders interested in diversification, produce research that will guide implementation and help them promote it widely amongst all players’.
The situation is critical for governments not only because of the falling revenues from the palm-oil industry but also for the security of incomes and food supply for citizens. Oil palm is not a very suitable crop for smallholders because it requires high upfront investment, is difficult to manage—especially for older people—and needs intensive input to produce high yields. Countries with higher incomes and ageing agricultural workforces, such as Malaysia, are experiencing a critical labour shortage. Malaysia has a high dependency (> 70%) on migrant workers, mainly from Indonesia. Now that Indonesia has become the main palm-oil producer and is offering the same wage levels, most migrant workers have returned to their home country. Addressing the problem through mechanization is not looking plausible owing to only poor-quality machinery being available.
At the same time, for most Indonesian and Malaysian farmers, oil palm has become the only possible use for their land, because there are no, or weak, market structures for other agricultural products.
Restoration 
Plantations and tree crop commodities 
Enhanced nutrition and food security 
Biodiversity, safeguarding and conservation 
Nationally determined contributions 
Bioenergy and biomaterials 
Blue carbon and peatlands 
Climate change adaptation 
Landscape governance 
Gender 
Silvopastoral systems 
Market-based agroforestry-forestry 
Farm-forest policy interface 
Agroecology 
Livelihood trajectory modelling and assessment 
Inclusive finance and business models 
Innovating finance for sustainable landscapes 
Public and private commitments to zero deforestation 
Orphan tree crops 
Effectiveness of approaches to sustainable supply 
Quality of FTA research for development 
Sentinel landscapes 
Foresight 
Seeds and seedlings delivery systems 
Smallholder tree-crop commodities 
Imelda Bacudo of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-German Programme on Response to Climate Change in Agriculture and Forestry said it was hard to see the desired convergence of forestry and agriculture, yet this was something that was much needed.
Nguyen Tuong Van of VNFOREST, Viet Nam, agreed: ‘There are many links between agroforestry and the Sustainable Development Goals and Viet Nam already has a lot of agroforestry models.
The same case applies in Indonesia, said Wiratno, Director of Social Forestry Land Preparation of the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry and chairperson of the ASEAN Social Forestry Network secretariat.
Dian Sukmajaya of the ASEAN Economic Community Department of the ASEAN Secretariat called on policy makers to change their mindset – and policies in order to overcome landscape segregation. ‘Agroforestry has been practiced for thousands of years, contributes directly to SDG 17 and others, and offers efficient use of land.’
