Temperate Agroforestry Systems for Diversification and Environmental Sustainability in Northwestern Himalayan Region

On account of productive, protective, and conservational services and the socioeconomic upliftment of the farmers due to agroforestry, there has been a renewed and growing interest in the establishment of agroforestry systems as part of the existing farming situations. Agroforestry is widely recognized as a sustainable practice that yields multiple benefits by sequentially and spatially combining agricultural and tree crops. Small, marginal, and split land holdings, subsistence rainfed agriculture, sparse human settlements, undulating topography, migration to other areas for livelihood, low productivity of crops and livestock, fragile ecosystems, and varied agrobiodiversity are some of the characteristic features of the Himalayan region. There are four distinct physiogeographical zones in the northwest Himalayas: subtropical, temperate, arid Trans-Himalayan, and subtemperate/mid-hills. There is hardly any scope for increasing the area under agriculture as the per capita availability of land is decreasing. The fragmented and marginal land holdings make it difficult for the farmers to allot sufficient land for tree crops. Agroforestry is a permanent attribute of agricultural landscapes in hilly regions, providing multifarious ecosystem services. The farmers of the temperate region have since time immemorial combined field crops, trees, and animals in their land-use systems, plausibly increasing the availability of fuel wood, fodder, and other products. The region also harbors a wide diversity of traditional as well as improved agroforestry systems that include boundary plantations, village woodlots, agri-silviculture, agri-horti-silviculture, horti-silviculture, horti-silvipasture, hortipastoral, silvopastoral, some gardens, and even scattered and isolated trees on farmlands. These agroforestry systems have rich agrobiodiversity and provide a wide range of ecosystem and production benefits and services. Suitable research interventions and scientific practices, sufficient funding, fitting extension programs, policy interventions, and the development of agroforestry boards at state and national levels are required to boost the productivity of existing systems.