Agroforestry Research Paper

A rapid demographic development accompanied by climatic variability and climatic change creates pressure on environmental and natural resources. The resulted land degradation affects many populations in the globe. This situation is sever in developing countries specially Sub Saharan Africa where majority of the population heavily rely its livelihood on subsistence production system. The problem arisen by land degradation has tried to solve through the introduction of different innovations (introduction of fast growing plants, drought resistance crops, agroforestry practices etc). However, in developing countries, the problem of recurring drought is persisting; and globally more than 1 billion people are undernourished. Despite of the consumption

It indicates a way for more resilient livelihoods especially for peoples in developing countries like Africa whose livelihood strategy threatened by climatic change and land degradation.

According to Lawson et.al. 2005, Agroforestry practices are part of the history of European rural landscape in which trees were intentionally included in grazing and farming plots. However, during the 20th century, trees were progressively removed from farming and grazing areas as a result of mechanization, intensification and increments of cultivable land. During the last three decades, the advantages of integrating trees in to cultivable land were highly recognized by European farmers and thus has resulted shift in the rate of

Accordingly, the framework under which its practice contribute to sustainable food security, social wealth and asset, mitigation and adaptation of climatic change and improving ecosystem service demands a clear understanding of the process and its components that are relevant for the flow and management of sustainable ecosystem benefits in changing agricultural services. However, the knowledge which investment in agroforestry is feasible and where is not well studied. In addition to that, optimization models that obtained an optimized combination of agroforestry practices lacking in the literature. Apart from this, previous studies are neglecting environmental costs and benefits that can obtain from agroforestry during the computation of costs and benefits of alternative agroforestry practices. Therefore, this study will conduct to solve or fill the above-mentioned gap in literature.

Objective of the study

The objective of this study is to assess the alternative agroforestry investments and to estimate the total economic value of selected agroforestry practices in Eastern and Southern Africa. This study comprises the following subordinate objectives:

 to obtain information on practices and trends of agroforestry practices;

 to estimate or value the economic, social, environmental costs and benefits of selected