Land evaluation for agroforestry: the tasks ahead
The objectives and procedures of land evaluation and the nature of the results obtained are out-lined. The present state of development of evalua-tion methodology is reviewed for kinds of land use related to agroforestry: crop production, forestry and livestock production. The stages in the develop-ment of a methodology of land evaluation for agro-forestry are described, namely: an environmental data base, formulation of appropriate agroforestry land utilization types, determination of land use require-ments, construction of biophysical models, assessment of environmental impact and sustainability, method for comparison between agroforestry and non-agro-forestry land utilization types, and testing through case studies. Land evaluation draws upon data from, and interacts with, many other ICRAF projects in agroforestry research. The principal outputs from a land evaluation research programme will be: (i) a systematic assessment of the environmental suit-abilities of specified agroforestry land utilization types; (ii) a method for comparison of the suit-ability, including environmental, economic and social aspects, of land utilization types, both agroforestry and non-agroforestry, on different land units. The results will permit quantitative estimates of the potential contribution of agroforestry to sustainable production over specified areas of land.
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Publication year
2022
