When land users started blending trees with annual food crop production thousands of years ago, they most likely did so because they could obtain closer to home a better, more appealing diet from fruits and nuts. They also may have enjoyed the shade of trees and other direct, visible benefits from trees on their farms. In many areas, agroforestry started with people introducing annual crops in among trees, rather than introducing trees into agricultural fields. The users of trees, and the farmers leaving the existing trees in the "fields" they created, most likely left them because they liked the fruits and other direct products they could harvest from them - or because it was too much work to remove them. Over time, people learned from experience about the more hidden benefits from having trees in and around the fields - for example, they found that crops growing behind a sheltering row of trees in some areas yielded more, or that they could farm their fields longer before having to move on to clear the next forest patch.
In the early days of agroforestry, population pressure was not a problem in most areas, and shifting cultivation was the norm, rather than the exception in the tropics. Fallows could be as long as needed, because the pressures on land were slight. Fuelwood and building poles were available nearby, and certainly timber was not of interest as products to be grown by people who had very short life expectancies. In sum, agroforestry in the early days likely was a response to quite obvious needs and wants that trees can satisfy. Only later did agroforestry become popular as a means of taking maximum advantage of the biophysical conditions of the soil and the climate. Farmers learned to respond to the environment they faced by including trees in mixed cropping systems that fit the conditions.
As ICRAF has found, trees on farms are still attractive as a response to immediate needs and wants - farmers still plant trees for the fruit and nuts they yield, for the animal feed they produce, for the shade they give, and so forth. ICRAF and its partners are learning more about the interactions of trees with soil, water, nutrients, other crops and pests, and that learning is put into practice to improve on what the farmer has learned and liked from experience. ICRAF understands very well that most of what it can do, on the technical side of agroforestry, is to improve existing practices. In fact, much of the best output from ICRAF research is built directly on existing farmer practices, for example, in the case of the improved fallow work.
ICRAF now, and by design, is focusing more on what did not exist in the early days of agroforestry, namely, the sophisticated and powerful institutional, policy and electronic communication mechanisms that permit rapid and effective transfer of information and knowledge. This can make credit and technology widely available, can provide easy access to technical support in various areas and can provide the means to process and market agroforestry products. These mechanisms, which have been developed only recently in human history, can be backed up by advanced intellectual power that can make adoption of new and improved practices much easier and less risky.
The Panel supports ICRAF in its evolution towards research and development activities related to the introduction of new institutional and policy approaches, watershed and landscape level systems studies and, more fundamentally, improved understanding of all the components along the research to development continuum. ICRAF needs to preserve its basic skills and continue contributing to the understanding of agroforestry on the farm; and its needs to continue its work on understanding the basic biophysical processes that govern tree-crop-environment interactions. However, it also needs to move more into the areas of research that are critical ones for the future of agroforestry, yet more difficult for smaller, less integrated and less multidisciplinary groups to deal with in a realistic and productive manner.
The priority areas for ICRAF's future activity include national and local level institutional and policy issues and the opportunities for many countries to learn through, and benefit from, its synthesis research and other approaches that permit the production of true international public goods. While there always is the need for more and better technology research, ICRAF has recognized that much of the technology already on the shelves of research institutions is far ahead of practice and the ability, resources and motivation to adopt it in the fields. ICRAF is attempting to discover why this is so and doing research on how to overcome the barriers to adoption of new and improved systems. Oftentimes, the barriers prove to be quite amenable to research, and the constraints small and easy to solve through research and development support.
The Panel sees ICRAF's current evolution as being very positive. ICRAF should continue pursuing its more conventional technologically oriented agroforestry research and development activities ("putting improved trees on farms to benefit farmers and the environment"). However, the Panel urges ICRAF to also continue moving more intensively towards:
· development of a dynamic perspective planning framework that will permit analysis and prediction related to expected trends and conditions farther into the future than presently considered by ICRAF. ICRAF's evolving integrated natural resources management framework, and its on-going systems analytical work on priority setting and planning, provide a start in this direction. ICRAF should be encouraged to work with others in carrying this work further. The most sophisticated tools and technologies need to be drawn upon in looking into the future to anticipate, detect early and prevent agroforestry-related problems. The present approach is more one of reacting to existing problems with often costly rehabilitation and restoration strategies. Many different types of input are needed in addition to the traditional farm-level biophysical research inputs. Large scale simulation modeling, trend analysis tools, GIS input and social science research to analyze trends and predict developments, are all needed. ICRAF already has in place many of the skills that will be called upon. It also has linkages with other ARIs interested in these problems, although such linkages could be strengthened over time.· landscape and watershed level research to understand interactions. Such research requires significant resources, interdisciplinary approaches, long term presence at sites, and concern for understanding externalities - all conditions that ICRAF and its CGIAR partners can meet but most others cannot or will not meet.
· policy research to help countries set the context for agroforestry development. The incentive for countries is that agroforestry can contribute both to increasing rural welfare and to the broader national objective of environmental enhancement and protection, particularly related to soil conservation and prevention of downstream damages from poor land use.
· increasing its and its partners understanding of all the enabling components along a successful research to development continuum. ICRAF and others realize that technology development is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, if the ultimate goals are poverty alleviation, food security and environmental enhancement. From technology to adoption and implementation is a long way, as evidenced by past experience. ICRAF is beginning to develop an understanding of the appropriateness of varied dissemination and adoption pathways under different social, cultural and environmental conditions.
Toward An Integrated Natural Resources Management (INRM) Research Paradigm: All the thrusts mentioned above require a longer term perspective and a broader view of agroforestry within a more holistic Integrated Natural Resources Management (INRM) framework (based on TAC 1997)1 than is now implied by ICRAF's strategic plan and programme of activities. Yet, one cannot avoid moving towards this broader perspective, if the hope is for effective contributions to sustainable development and the goals of the CGIAR over the longer term. The INRM perspective on sustainable development issues is essential and will become more so as the linkages between resource utilization, management, and conservation practices become stronger and more interwoven.
1
TAC (1997) Priorities and Strategies for Soil and Water Aspects of Natural Resources Management Research in the CGIAR. TAC Secretariat, FAO.
INRM is not a new concept, in fact, it is closely parallel to the ideas that have existed in the field of watershed management for many decades, as well as in some other fields. Basically, the Panel sees INRM as a conceptual organizing framework for considering five key linkages, namely: 1) spatial or scale linkages - e.g., between upstream and downstream land users; 2) temporal linkages - e.g., between present and future generations; 3) institutional linkages - e.g., between different levels of government, between government and the private sector; 4) linkages between resource conserving technologies and productivity enhancing technologies; and 5) linkages between social, biophysical, and other disciplines and sciences. Within the broad organizing framework, ICRAF, has a contribution to make, since it in fact has considered agroforestry already within an INRM framework.
The integrated framework involves inter- or multidisciplinary research. The Panel's view of this approach is one where the partners from different disciplines come together to understand the issue(s) being addressed and the roles of each discipline in a common framework as contributed to by all the disciplines involved. Each discipline then goes off to do the components agreed upon. In a simplified sense the partners then come together again to reach consensus within the common interdisciplinary framework on the issue(s) addressed. In reality, this is an iterative process of successive approximations as the team moves towards acceptable solutions and advancements in terms of the common INRM context.
The Panel stresses here that the outputs of INRM research will for the most part be very relevant for the small-scale farmer or land user, since every day the land user deals with INRM issues facing him or her, i.e., taking advantage of the synergies between all the components in the farm environment, and in the context of the broader institutional environment faced. This INRM approach is very important for the land user and so critical for survival and success, particularly for the small mixed farming systems of the developing world. The successful ones truly are the practitioners of INRM.
Focusing on Partnerships: The Panel stresses that ICRAF is only one of the entities in the broader mosaic of groups with common interest in the INRM approach and associated issues in the world. As mentioned, many of the other CGIAR centres have equal claim to this thematic area, as do many NARS, ARIs and even non-research focused NGOs. The Panel emphasizes that none of them, including ICRAF, can or should lay claim to dominance and leadership in the whole INRM area. Effective partnership is the order of the day, which implies a productive marriage of ideas, activities, actions, and responsibilities. Effective partnerships have to start right from the beginning with a "partnership building," strategic planning meeting of the partners to openly discuss and agree on what is being done and who will do what. The result is communication and understanding of mutual benefits, but not necessarily resulting in equal roles and responsibilities for all. ICRAF brings to the table, in such a partnership, the special expertise on agroforestry's contribution to INRM and to meeting the associated goals of the CGIAR.
ICRAF cannot do all of this alone, nor is it trying to do so. It needs partners. In some cases, it needs to concentrate on strengthening the capacity of those NARS partners who need such support and are essential partners in the tasks at hand. In other cases, it needs to seek out the best means of strengthening its own capacity by learning and gaining from interactions with other, specialized and advanced research and development institutions. Recognizing that it cannot work with everyone, ICRAF needs to develop a more systematic and analytically based understanding of what makes partnerships productive, and what makes them weak and a drain on resources. ICRAF has made a start in this direction. It should now pursue the task much more directly and intensively, for such understanding should be a key input into its advancing effort to develop an improved planning and priority setting framework.
A network of national and international institutions is required to deal effectively with the related issues described above, and so that sustainable natural resources management issues and options can be researched and developed on an integrated basis across countries and regions, thus producting international public goods. In the case of the CGIAR, centres such as IIMI, CIFOR, ILRI, IFPRI, CIAT, ICRISAT, and ICARDA need to be involved as partners; and ICRAF needs to collaborate more with such other international institutions as IBSRAM, ICIPE, TSBF and IFDC. Indeed, several of the existing Systemwide Programmes deal directly with key ingredients of the approach to ICRAF's future described above. The possible modalities for managing such partnerships are several. In one scenario, ICRAF could be the global contributor of agroforestry expertise to INRM research. In another scenario, ICRAF could become a regional node in a consortium of regional centres that all have agroforestry as one of the INRM components.
A future such as envisioned will require increased funding for INRM work (not only for ICRAF, but also for the other partners in various INRM consortia). To bring this about, and to complement and create conditions for achieving the full benefits of INRM research, there is need for large scale and intensive public education programmes that will raise awareness of the issues and create the political will to put in place the required resources and policies for a much stronger focus on the issues embodied in the INRM framework. This implies creation of a broader demand for the goods and environmental services from INRM - many of them were mentioned above, including the global change and biodiversity preservation benefits, the water management, and the energy output and conservation benefits.
Implementation of the INRM approach requires a broadening of ICRAF's perspective on the potential benefits of agroforestry beyond the farmer's fields and home. Above all else, it requires establishment of effective partnerships that focus on a "participatory adaptive management" approach to resource utilization and conservation and the contributions that INRM can make to poverty alleviation, food and nutritional security and environmental enhancement.
