Agroforestry tree domestication emerged as a farmer-driven, market-led process in the early 1990s and became an international initiative. A participatory approach now supplements the more traditional aspects of tree improvement, and is seen as an import-ant strategy towards the Millennium Development Goals of eradicating poverty and hunger, promotingsocial equity and environmental sustainability. Con-siderable progress has been made towards the domesti-cation of indigenous fruits and nuts in many villages in Cameroon and Nigeria. Vegetatively-propagated cultivars based on a sound knowledge of ‘ideotypes’ derived from an understanding of the tree-to-tree vari-ation in many commercially important traits are being developed by farmers. These are being integrated intopolycultural farming systems, especially the cocoa agro-forests. Markets for Agroforestry Tree Products (AFTPs) are crucial for the adoption of agroforestry on a scale to have meaningful economic, social and environmental impacts. Important lessons have been learned in southern Africa from detailed studies of the commercia-lisation of AFTPs. These provide support for the wider acceptance of the role of domesticating indigenous treesin the promotion of enhanced livelihoods for poor farmers in the tropics. Policy guidelines have been developed in support of this sustainable rural develop-ment as an alternative strategy to those proposed in many other major development and conservation fora.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2005.9684741Altmetric score:
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Publication year
2022
Authors
Leakey R R B; Schreckenberg K; Shackleton S E; Shackleton C M; Tchoundjeu Z
Language
English
Keywords
agroforestry, domestication, indigenous varieties, novel foods, poverty
