New initiatives in agroforestry are seeking to integrate indigenous trees, whose products havetraditionally been gathered from natural forests, into tropical farming systems such as cacaofarms. This is being done to provide from farms, marketable timber and non-timber forestproducts that will enhance rural livelihoods by generating cash for resource-poor rural andperi-urban households. There are many potential candidate species for domestication that havecommercial potential in local, regional or even international markets. Little or no formalresearch has been carried out on many of these hitherto wild species to assess potential forgenetic improvement, reproductive biology or suitability for cultivation. With the participationof subsistence farmers a number of projects to bring candidate species into cultivation are inprogress, however. This paper describes some tree domestication activities being carried out insouthern Cameroon, especially withIrvingia gabonensis(bush mango; dika nut) andDacryodesedulis(African plum; safoutier). As part of this, fruits and kernels from 300D. edulisand 150I.gabonensistrees in six villages of Cameroon and Nigeria have been quantitatively characterizedfor 11 traits to determine combinations deÆning multi-trait ideotypes for a genetic selectionprogramme.I. gabonensisfruits are rich in vitamin A (67 mg 100 ml71), while the kernels arerich in fat (51.3%) and contain a polysaccharide that is a food thickener. The fruits ofD. edulisare also rich in oil (31.9%) and protein (25.9%).This poverty-reducing agroforestry strategy is at the same time linked to one in whichperennial, biologically diverse and complex mature-stage agroecosystems are developed assustainable alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture. To meet the objective of povertyreduction, however, it is crucial that market expansion and creation are possible. Hence, forexample, it is important to determine which marketable traits are amenable to geneticimprovement. While some traits (such as fruit and kernel mass) that beneÆt the farmer arerelatively easy to identify, there are undoubtedly others that are important to the food,pharmaceutical or other industries which require more sophisticated chemical evaluation.There is a need, therefore, for better linkages between agroforesters and the private sector. Thedomestication activities described are relevant to the enrichment of smallholder cacao farmsand agroforests. This diversiÆcation is seen as being important for the support of the cacaoindustry.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0014479701003015Altmetric score:
Dimensions Citation Count:
Publication year
2022
Authors
Language
English
Keywords
agroforestry, daycryodes edulis, domestication, fruit trees, indigenous varieties, irvingia gabonensis, markets, poverty
Geographic
Cameroon, Nigeria
