Abstracts on Sustainable Agriculture (GTZ, 1992, 423 p.): Abstracts on agroforestry: 11. Agroforestry and biomass energy/fuelwood production.

Abstracts on Sustainable Agriculture (GTZ, 1992, 423 p.)

Abstracts on agroforestry

		Acknowledgements
		1. Tree products in agroecosystems: economic and policy issues.
		2. Sustainable use of plantation forestry in the lowland tropics.
		3. The palcazu project: forest management and native yanesha communities.
		4. Opportunities and constraints for sustainable tropical forestry: lessons from the plan piloto forestal, quintana roo, Mexico.
		5. The taungya system in south-west Ghana.
		6. Planning for agroforestry.
		7. Sowing forests from the air.
		8. Agroforestry pathways: land tenure, shifting cultivation and sustainable agriculture.
		9. Food, coffee and casuarina: an agroforestry system from the Papua New Guinea highlands.
		10. Agroforestry in africa's humid tropics - three success stories.
		11. Agroforestry and biomass energy/fuelwood production.
		12. Regeneration of woody legumes in Sahel.
		13. Medicines from the forest.
		14. Potential for protein production from tree and shrub legumes.
		15. Agroforestry for sustainable production; economic implications.
		16. Living fences. A close-up look at an agroforestry technology.
		17. Homestead agroforestry in Bangladesh.
		18. Guidelines for training in rapid appraisal for agroforestry research and extension.
		19. Erythrina (leguminosae: papilionoideae): a versatile genus for agroforestry systems in the tropics.

11. Agroforestry and biomass energy/fuelwood production.

In: Agroforestry Systems in the Tropics; Edt. P.K.R. Nair, Kluwer

Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands; 1989, pp. 591-597

The fuelwood situation in many developing countries has become alarming in recent times.

Recent studies have indicated that fuelwood cutting is second only to clearing land for agriculture as a major cause of deforestation.

Although fuel for cooking is the most important use of firewood, there are also other uses such as heating and lighting. Wood remains the main fuel source even in areas where forests are rapidly disappearing.

Trees and shrubs constitute the main source of firewood and other forms of biomass energy.

The problem of fuelwood shortage cannot be tackled in isolation from other aspects of rural development. The rather unimpressive performance of large-scale forestry and reafforestation programmes in the developing countries offers a good lesson.

The chances of a programme for fuelwood production being successful are greatly enhanced if it can be tackled the production not only of fuelwood but also of food crops.

Agroforestry can be of value in this context by:

- Incorporating and integrating appropriate species of woody perennials on farmlands along with other components of the farming system not in a competitive but in a complementary way;
- Integrating herbaceous crops and livestock on forest land according to the agroforestry management schemes so as to facilitate simultaneous production of wood and food crops; and
- Employing agroforestry techniques for reclamation of degraded lands and proper utilization of "wastelands".

Integration of appropriate fuelwood species on crop- and livestock-production units thus seems to be one of the best strategies for fuelwood production in the rural areas of the developing countries.

The greatest scope for improving their efficiency and obtaining tangible results in such a programme lies with initiatives in smallholdings.

1172 92 - 7/86

Agroforestry

Review, book, Africa, Sahel, semi-arid zones, wood, legume species, natural regeneration, seed dispersal, seed predation, seedlings, seed germination, ecological conditions.

TYBIRK, K.