National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS)
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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Agroforestry is a dynamic ecologically based natural resources management system that diversifies for increased socioeconomic and environmental services for land-users. The study analyzed the prevalent agroforestry practices and their socioeconomic and environmental services to draw up recommendations for sustainable agroforestry development in Ganderbal district of Kashmir Himalaya. Multi-stage random sampling was employed to select a sample of 380 households of 10 villages under 3 blocks in the district for field survey. Data were collected using structured interviews and non-participant observations. Descriptive and analytical statistics were used for the data analysis. Results indicated that hortisilviagriculture (26.05%) is the most prevalent agroforestry system while the agrihorticulture (2.89%) is the least practiced agroforestry system. The agroforestry practice comprises planting of 14 categories of ethno-medicago-botanically important plants for livelihood security and ecological sustainability. Weighted Mean Score (WMS) indicated that self-reliance in forest resources (WMS, 2.99) was considered the most important socioeconomic service ranking as 1st whereas the communication exposure (WMS, 1.29) was perceived as least important and ranked as 10th. Conversely, biomass production (WMS, 2.80) was observed as the most important environmental service ranking as 1st while the reduction in pest and diseases incidence (WMS, 1.41) was perceived least important and rated as 10th. Correlation analysis specified that all the socioeconomic and environmental services were positively and significantly associated with the agroforestry adoption. The effective implementation of agroforestry as key component of community-based policies and programs, the study determined that the socioeconomic and environmental services encouraged adoption by rural farmers making it more viable and sustainable technically.
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