Agroforestry
[9] Likewise Native Americans in the eastern United States extensively altered their environment and managed land as a “mosaic” of woodland areas, orchards, and forest gardens.
[11] "Tropical home gardens" are traditional systems developed over time by growers without formalized research or institutional support, and are characterized by a high complexity and diversity of useful plants, with a canopy of tree and palm species that produce food, fuel, and shade, a mid-story of shrubs for fruit or spices, and an understory of root vegetables, medicinal herbs, beans, ornamental plants, and other non-woody crops.
[15] Agroforestry as understood by modern science is derived from traditional indigenous and local practices, developed by living in close association with ecosystems for many generations.
The UN's FAO helped introduce a system incorporating local knowledge consisting of the following steps:[45][46] The kuojtakiloyan of Mexico is a jungle-landscaped polyculture that grows avocadoes, sweet potatoes, cinnamon, black cherries, cuajiniquil [es ], citrus fruits, gourds, macadamia, mangoes, bananas and sapotes.
[47] Kuojtakiloyan is a Masehual term that means 'useful forest' or 'forest that produces', and it is an agroforestry system developed and maintained by indigenous peoples of the Sierra Norte of the State of Puebla, Mexico.
[citation needed] The kuojtakiloyan is a jungle-landscaped polyculture in which avocados, sweet potatoes, cinnamon, black cherries, chalahuits, citrus fruits, gourds, macadamia, mangoes, bananas and sapotes are grown.
By 2050 the restored land should sequestrate 20 billion tons of carbon annually[69] Shamba (Swahili for 'plantation') is an agroforestry system practiced in East Africa, particularly in Kenya.
Under this system, various crops are combined: bananas, beans, yams and corn, to which are added timber resources, beekeeping, medicinal herbs, mushrooms, forest fruits, fodder for livestock, etc.
[71] More recently, after scientific study of lo’I systems, attempts have been made to reintroduce dryland agroforestry in Hawai’i Island and Maui, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between political leaders, landowners, and scientists.
[72] Although originally a concept in tropical agronomy,[17] agroforestry's multiple benefits, for instance in nutrient cycles and potential for mitigating droughts, have led to its adoption in the USA and Europe.
[78] The pods of Inga edulis are widely sold on the local South American marketplace, mainly for the sweet, succulent pulp surrounding the seeds.
[88] Another set of tests involve growing Populus tremula for biofuel at 52 trees a hectare and with grazing pasture alternated every two to three years with maize or sorghum, wheat, strawberries and fallowing between rows of modern short-pruned & grafted apple cultivars ('Boskoop' & 'Spartan') and growing modern sour cherry cultivars ('Morina', 'Coraline' and 'Achat') and apples, with bushes in the rows with tree (dogrose, Cornus mas, Hippophae rhamnoides) intercropped with various vegetables.
[89] Forest gardening is a low-maintenance, sustainable,[90] plant-based food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables which have yields directly useful to humans.
Starting as relatively conventional smallholders, Hart soon discovered that maintaining large annual vegetable beds, rearing livestock and taking care of an orchard were tasks beyond their strength.
"[93]: 4–5 The Agroforestry Research Trust, managed by Martin Crawford, runs experimental forest gardening projects on a number of plots in Devon, United Kingdom.
[116] The environmental historian William Cronon argued in his 1983 book Changes in the Land that indigenous North Americans used controlled burning to form ideal habitat for wild game.
Ground covers are low-growing edible forest garden plants that help keep weeds in control and provide a way to utilize areas that would otherwise be unused.
[123] Other forest garden projects include those at the central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute in Basalt, Colorado, and Montview Neighborhood farm in Northampton, Massachusetts.
[131] In the United Kingdom, other than those run by the Agroforestry Research Trust (ART), projects include the Bangor Forest Garden in Gwynedd, northwest Wales.
In addition to thinning the overstory, this method involves clearing the understory of undesirable vegetation and other practices that are closely related to agronomy (tillage, fertilization, weeding, and control of disease and insects and wildlife management).
Wild-simulated seeks to maintain a natural growing environment, yet enriches local NTFP populations to create an abundant renewable supply of the products.
Another good source to start with on information is the Medicinal Plants at Risk 2008 report, by the Center for Biological Diversity] in the U.S.[149] (from the National Agroforestry Center)[citation needed] Medicinal herbs: Nuts: Fruit: Other food crops: Other products: (mulch, decoratives, crafts, dyes) Native ornamentals: Farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) is a low-cost, sustainable land restoration technique used to combat poverty and hunger amongst poor subsistence farmers in developing countries by increasing food and timber production, and resilience to climate extremes.
On farmland, selected trees are trimmed and pruned to maximise growth while promoting optimal growing conditions for annual crops (such as access to water and sunlight).
[160] In tropical regions across the world, where rich soils and good rainfall would normally assure bountiful harvests and fat livestock, some environments have become so degraded they are no longer productive.
[154][159][161] In the early-1980s, in the Maradi region of the Republic of Niger, the missionary organisation, Serving in Mission (SIM), was unsuccessfully attempting to reforest the surrounding districts using conventional means.
From 1985 to 1999, FMNR continued to be promoted locally and nationally as exchange visits and training days were organised for various NGOs, government foresters, Peace Corps volunteers, and farmer and civil society groups.
The Government of Ethiopia has committed to reforest 15 million hectares of degraded land using FMNR as part of a climate change and renewable energy plan to become carbon neutral by 2025.
In reality, there is no fixed way of practising FMNR and farmers are free to choose which species they will leave, the density of trees they prefer, and the timing and method of pruning.
Over nearly 30 years, FMNR has changed the farming landscape in some of the poorest countries in the world, including parts of Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal, providing subsistence farmers with the methods necessary to become more food secure and resilient against severe weather events.
In the 2011 State of the World Report, Bunch concludes that four major factors – lack of sustainable fertile land, loss of traditional fallowing, cost of fertiliser and climate change – are coming together all at once in a sort of "perfect storm" that will almost surely result in an African famine of unprecedented proportions, probably within the next four to five years.
