Farm-level timber production: orienting farmers towards the market

Timber from natural forests is in-creasingly less available because of conservation, environmental and social concerns. Industrial plantations make up only about 5 percent of the totalforest area but provide 35 percent of the world’s wood supply (FAO, 2001). Expan-sion of industrial plantations, however, islimited because of competition from al-ternative land uses. Yet the demand for timber and other forest and tree productsis increasing at the local, regional and in-ternational levels. In response, many small-scale agroforestry systems haveevolved market orientations.Trees on farms have long been recog-nized as protecting and often enhancing soil fertility, assisting in soil and water conservation and providing fodder,fuelwood and construction materials for rural households. They also help main- tain biodiversity (by diversifying plant cover and providing habitat for other plants and animals) and enhance the landscape. In addition, commercial pro- duction of timber on farms in the trop-ics, either as scattered trees or as small-scale woodlands is a potentially important element of farm livelihoods (Dewees and Saxena, 1997).

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