National Agroforestry Policy

India is the first nation in the world to adopt a comprehensive agroforestry policy when it launched the National Agroforestry Policy (NAP) at the World Agroforestry Congress held in Delhi in February 2014. The National Agroforestry Policy addresses the problems faced by the agroforestry sector including adverse policies, weak markets and a dearth of institutional finance.

Agroforestry

Agroforestry is defined as a system of land use that integrates trees and shrubs on farmlands and on rural landscape to improve productivity, profitability, diversity as well as the sustainability of ecosystem. Agroforestry is a dynamic ecologically based concept which integrates woody perennials in the agriculture landscape, which diversifies and sustains production.

Significance of Agroforestry

• It includes both traditional and modern land use system where trees are grown together with crops and animal production systems in agricultural settings.
• It can be practiced both in irrigated and rain fed conditions.
• It helps to produce food, fuel, fodder, timber, fertilizer and contributes to food, nutritional and ecological security in addition to sustaining livelihoods and alleviating poverty.
• It promotes resilient cropping and farming environments.
• It is capable of enhancing ecosystem services through carbon storage, prevent deforestation, and conserve biodiversity, soil and water.
• When done in a large scale with appropriate mix of species, it helps agricultural land to withstand extreme weather events like floods, droughts and climate change.
• It can generate significant employment opportunities through production, industrial application and value addition ventures.
• Agroforestry can be regarded is the only possible alternative at present to meet the target of increasing forest cover to 33% from the present level of less than 25% as envisaged in the National Forest Policy (1988).
• Agroforestry has the potential to mitigate the ill effects of climate change through microclimate moderation and natural resource conservation in the short run and carbon sequestration in the long run.

Need for Agroforestry Policy

Lack of a dedicated national policy and a suitable institutional mechanism

Policy initiatives of the government like the National Forest Policy 1988, the National Agriculture Policy 2000, Planning Commission Task Force on Greening India 2001, National Bamboo Mission 2002, National Policy on Farmers, 2007 and Green India Mission 2010 have placed much emphasis on the role of agroforestry for efficient nutrient cycling, enhancing the vegetation cover and adding organic matter for sustainable agriculture. However, agroforestry has not attained the desired importance that it should have attained. The main factors responsible for the bad performance of agroforestry are:

• Lack of institutional support mechanisms;
• Lack of post-harvest processing technologies;
• Lack of extension mechanisms;
• Restrictive and non-conducive legal provisions for harvesting and transportation of trees grown on farmlands;
• Lack of quality planting materials and inadequate research on agroforestry models;
• Insufficient marketing infrastructure and price discovery mechanisms;
• Mandate of agroforestry falls under the ambit of various ministries, departments, agencies, state governments, etc.

Unavailability of an integrated farming systems approach

Effective integration of trees, crops, water, livestock and other livelihood initiatives was missing in the national agroforestry initiatives.

Restrictive regulatory regime

Restrictions were imposed by the state government over harvesting and transportation of agroforestry produce to prevent pilferage from government forests. Obtaining clearance for harvesting and transportation was costly and frustrating issue for the farmers. Though some states took steps to liberalize the above restrictions but it was not carried out uniformly in all states. In this regard, Arun Kumar Bansal Committee (2011) appointed by the MoEF has reported the regulatory bottlenecks associated with the growth of agroforestry and the need for acting on those issues.

Inadequate research, extension and capacity building

Research results on agroforestry do not reach down to the farmers due to the lack of a dedicated extension system. Also, institutional mechanisms to promote agroforestry are also non-existent.

Unavailability of quality planting material

Planting materials like seeds, seedlings, clones, hybrids were not easily available to the farmers especially in resource poor regions. Moreover, only around 10% of the planting materials were found to be of possessing high quality meeting the quality standards.

Institutional finance and insurance coverage

Institutional finance in agroforestry was lacking due to lack of awareness of technical and economic data required by financial institutions (FIs) to evaluate finance needs and viability of projects.

Weak market access

Marketing infrastructure including “price discovery” mechanisms for agroforestry was not available in the country except few states. As a result, the middlemen profited more than the cultivators.

Sub-optimal industry operations

The wood based industries have an important role in the promotion of agroforestry. However, regulations governing this industry were stringent and cumbersome.

Goals of National Agroforestry Policy

• Establishment of a National Agroforestry Mission/Agroforestry Board to implement the national policy by establishing coordination and synergy among various stakeholders.
• Enhancing the productivity, livelihood opportunities of rural households particularly of the small holder farmers through agroforestry.
• To meet the increasing demand for timber, food, fuel etc.; conservation of natural resources, protection of environment and increasing forest cover etc.

Salient features

Establishment of national level institutions to promote agroforestry

The policy aims to establish a Mission/Board to implement the national agroforestry policy. This is due to the fact that institutional set up will offer the platform for the multiple-stakeholders to coordinate and identify the priorities and strategies so that agroforestry gets equal treatment with other agricultural enterprises.

As ministry of agriculture has the mandate for agroforestry, the policy envisaged that the mission/board to be located in the Department of agriculture and Cooperation. The mission/Board shall comprise representatives from the Department of Agriculture Research & Education (DARE), Ministry of Environment & Forest (MoEF), Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MN&RE), International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF, South Asia Office), Planning Commission, National Rainfed Area Authority(NRAA), Non-Governmental Organizations, representatives of Industry, NABARD, Agricultural Universities, State Governments, etc.

The policy provides that the state governments shall identify a nodal department for implementing the agroforestry mission/board. At the district level, Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) may be the nodal agency.

Research and capacity building

Research & Development (R&D) shall be the responsibility of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Expertise of the Indian Council for forestry Research & Education (ICFRE) also needs to be capitalised in this endeavour.

Simplification of regulatory mechanism

The policy objectives takes into consideration the Forest Rights Act (FRA), Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 (PESA) etc. Decentralized institutions of local governance, such as the PRI, Gram Sabhas, Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMCs), Eco Development Committees or other similar people’s institutions have to play a greater role in the regulatory mechanisms.

Initially 20 important multipurpose tree species at the national level will be exempted from all restrictions pertaining to harvesting, transportation and marketing grown under agroforestry systems.

Institutional credit and insurance coverage

Dedicated Farmers Producers Organization (FPO) needs to be promoted to take up agroforestry at higher level.

Improving farmers’ access to quality planting material

The policy encourages the participation of private sector in production and development of supply chain of quality materials as private sector can play a vital role in augmenting supplies of quality planting materials.

Strengthening market access

The marketing infrastructure needs to be strengthened with more private sector participation.

Issues and challenges

• Agroforestry is a long term concept, but farmers are more interested in short term hassle free gains and therefore are opting more in for horticulture than the agroforestry.
• Region specific agroforestry models for small, marginal and large farmers have not been developed satisfactorily.
• Though, methodologies have been framed for ecosystem services, there is a need to focus on methodologies for quantification and payment of ecosystem services (PES) in agroforestry system.
• Not much emphasis has been placed on unique and hi-tech agroforestry systems like aqua-forestry.
• The policy is silent over the traditional agroforestry systems like that of Oraons of Rajasthan, Kangeyam system of Tamil Nadu, homegardens and Cardamom Hill Reserves of Kerala, alder-based large cardamom system in Sikkim and other North Eastern states. There should be some provision in the policy to revive such systems.
• The policy is silent about managing the challenges of primitive agroforestry system, namely shifting cultivation.
• The government system related to agroforestry is still ambiguous and corruption rules the roost.
• Inadequate awareness and knowledge dissemination and poor policy initiatives failed to popularize agroforestry among farmers.
• Role of business and development sectors is unsatisfactory.

Way forward

Following are some of the key proposals towards Agroforestry:

• Agroforestry can be placed as a priority area under Corporate Social Responsibility programmes
• States have to create an enabling environment by simplifying the rules and regulations related to the agroforestry.
• Public private partnership (PPP) initiatives need to be encouraged for promotion of agroforestry in road side/canal side/barren community land.
• R&D on agroforestry needs to be encouraged both in private and government sector to enhance the nitrogen fixing power of the indigenous species to meet the local needs for fuel, fodder and timber etc.
• Market driven models of agroforestry which are suitable for different ecological conditions needs to be developed to incentivise farmers for adopting agroforestry as a viable alternative.
• Agroforestry can be made as a course curriculum in school and colleges to make youth aware of the need to grow and conserve trees.
• A dedicated fund has to be established to leverage resources available under various schemes /programmes/missions to have focused interventions in the agroforestry sector in a coordinated manner.
• Wood based industries need to be encouraged as end user for promoting agroforestry, value chain development etc.
• Agroforestry farmers should be provided with incentives on input subsidy, post harvest management facilities etc.
• National Research Centre for Agroforestry (NRCAF) needs to be upgraded with regional setups in major agro-climatic zones of the country.
• Agroforestry research wing of ICFRE needs to be strengthened for the growth of private research and extension services.