International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability

International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 3 (2005) 1–23

Agroforestry Tree Products (AFTPs): Targeting Poverty Reduction and Enhanced Livelihoods

Roger R.B. Leakey1, Zac Tchoundjeu2, Kate Schreckenberg3, Sheona E. Shackleton4 and Charlie M. Shackleton4 1Agroforestry and Novel Crops Unit, School of Tropical Biology, James Cook University, PO Box 6811, Cairns, Queensland 4870, Australia, 2World Agroforestry Centre, BP 2067, Yaoundé, Cameroon, 3Overseas Development Institute, 111 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7JD, England and 4Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes University, PO Box 94, Grahamstown, South Africa

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 important strategy towards the Millennium Development Goals of eradicating poverty and hunger, promoting social equity and environmental sustainability. Considerable progress has been made towards the domestication 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 variation in many commercially important traits are being developed by farmers. These are being integrated into polycultural farming systems, especially the cocoa agroforests. 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 commercialisation of AFTPs. These provide support for the wider acceptance of the role of domesticating indigenous trees in the promotion of enhanced livelihoods for poor farmers in the tropics. Policy guidelines have been developed in support of this sustainable rural development as an alternative strategy to those proposed in many other major development and conservation fora.

Keywords: agroforestry, domestication, ecoagriculture, Green Revolution, indigenous fruits and nuts, novel crops

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