Annual Report 2013-2014 - Trees for Life

"Once every five years we celebrate the role of tree-based systems in human prosperity with an international congress," blogged Director General Tony Simons during the 3rd World Congress on Agroforestry. Jointly organized by the World Agroforestry Centre, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, the Indian Society of Agroforestry and Global Initiatives, the Congress took place in Delhi, India, in February 2014. Its theme was 'Trees for Life: Accelerating the Impact of Agroforestry.' Attended by over 1000 people from 80 countries, the Congress broke new ground, according to Ravi Prabhu, Deputy Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre: "It attracted a very high-level policy audience for the first time, and we have never had a congress when the host country announced that it was putting in place a national agroforestry policy. This was a huge event."The president of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, officially opened the Congress, telling delegates: "The cylinders can no longer remain idle; it is time to fire." He publicly launched the National Agroforestry Policy, which had been agreed by Cabinet the previous week. The policy will enable farmers to reap the benefits of agroforestry and adopt climate-smart agricultural practices. "2014 should be a defining moment for tree-based systems to address climate change," he said. The National Agroforestry Policy is in line with recommendations made by the National Advisory Council of the Government of India, which had suggested setting up a National Agroforestry Mission with an investment of 2000 million rupees (US$33 million). It is envisaged that funds made available to the mission will help to leverage a further 80,000 million rupees (US$1.3 billion) of investment. This will be used to promote sustainable agricultural practices and increase food production. As Secretary of the National Advisory Council, World Agroforestry Centre Board member Rita Sharma played a key role in promoting the agroforestry policy initiative. Pal Singh, until recently the World Agroforestry Centre's Regional Coordinator for South Asia, was also an influential presence during discussions. The second day of the Congress was devoted to science, with a plenary session and 12 parallel sessions. Scientists from across the globe also presented over 350 posters showcasing their research. "There was plenty of new thinking and innovative science on show," reflects Ravi Prabhu, "with many presentations and posters focusing on subjects such as biofuels and gender, which hadn't received such prominent coverage at previous congresses." During the seven weeks around the event, the WCA2014.org website received over 60,000 visits from 188 countries. Almost 200 blogposts were published and there were over 4000 tweets related to the Congress, in theory reaching some 2.6 million people. Facebook posts about the conference were read by over 17,000 people, and just under 2000 people watched live streaming of the Congress. The blog competition offered scientists a platform to showcase their projects, and proved a major success, with seven of the 10 most viewed pages being competition blogs.

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