[1] The policy aims to improve productivity and environmental sustainability by integrating trees, crops, and livestock into the same plot of land.
[2] Indians consider Ashok Vatika, a garden in Hindu epic Ramayana, which consisted of plants and fruit-bearing trees, as an example of an agroforestry system.
Experts traced the reasons for such limited results to mainly technical, regulatory, and financial hurdles faced by farmers, which raised the need for an agroforestry policy in India.
Among the many challenges to the national agroforestry policy are that farmers believe cultivating trees around farmland is counterproductive to their main source of income by reducing the crop yield by 40–60%.
However, Kishore Rithe, a former member of the National Board for Wildlife, observes that tribals will eventually cut down trees and practice agriculture.