Gendered Migration and Agroforestry in Indonesia: Livelihoods, Labor, Know-How, Networks

Constraints to agroforestry diffusion under the Billion Trees Afforestation Project (BTAP), Pakistan: policy recommendations for 10-BTAP

Effective agroforestry diffusion under the newly started 10-Billion Trees Afforestation Project (10-BTAP) needs a thorough understanding of the policy and implementation shortfalls of the already completed BTAP. This study examines the factors that affected the diffusion of the agroforestry in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan (HKH) region of Pakistan under BTAP. The data were gathered through in-depth interviews with Village Development Committee (VDC) members, Forest Department (FD) officials, and local farmers. Important factors positively affecting agroforestry diffusion included locations of crop fields on the river sides, community dependency on firewood, and market value of agroforestry timber. The logistic regression model shows that household head's age, access to information, and area under cropland positively affected household level adoption of agroforestry under BTAP; forest cover was negatively related. In-depth interviews show that key barriers to FD in diffusion of agroforestry included provision of false information by farmers to monitoring teams, non-availability of extension staff, lack of communication among project staff and community, as well as a lack of sufficient budget for activities. Primary barriers to community adoption of agroforestry included no participation of VDCs in planning and monitoring of agroforestry programs, lack of plant need assessments on the part of the project staff, poor quality of plants distributed by FD, farmers' poor know-how of plantations, lack of trust among community and project staff, as well as the waste of plants by farming community. Thus, this study recommends that policy-makers and project designers should consider these factors when planning agroforestry diffusion under 10-BTAP to improve its success.

Agroforestry-Based Ecosystem Services: Reconciling Values of Humans and Nature in Sustainable Development

Agroforestry as active area of multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary research aims to bridge several artificial divides that have respectable historical roots but hinder progress toward sustainable development goals. These include: (1) The segregation of “forestry trees” and “agricultural crops”, ignoring the continuity in functional properties and functions; the farm-scale “Agroforestry-1” concept seeks to reconnect perennial and annual, woody and nonwoody plants across the forest–agriculture divide to markets for inputs and outputs. (2) The identification of agriculture with provisioning services and the assumed monopoly of forests on other ecosystem services (including hydrology, carbon storage, biodiversity conservation) in the landscape, challenged by the opportunity of “integrated” solutions at landscape scale as the “Agroforestry-2” concept explores. (3) The gaps among local knowledge of farmers/agroforesters as landscape managers, the contributions of social and ecological sciences, the path-dependency of forestry, environmental or agricultural institutions, and emerging policy responses to “issue attention cycles” in the public debate, as is the focus of the “Agroforestry-3” concept. Progress in understanding social–ecological–economic systems at the practitioners–science–policy interface requires that both instrumental and relational values of nature are appreciated, as they complement critical steps in progressing issue cycles at the three scales. A set of hypotheses can guide further research.

When the “Strong Arms” Leave the Farms—Migration, Gender Roles and Risk Reduction in Vietnam

For many family farms, migration is one strategy for reducing poverty and vulnerability to both natural hazards and economic risk. While more men typically migrate to work, the implications of this on the household are inconclusive, especially for the women who remain on the farms. This study employs a gender lens to examine the effects of economically driven migration on household decision-making, farm labor and disaster risk reduction, focusing on two disaster-prone regions with high poverty rates in Vietnam: Dien Bien (Northwest) and Ha Tinh (North Central Coast) provinces. Surveys of 228 households with at least one migrant worker showed a new generation of young male and female migrants, and that men over 30 years of age migrated for longer periods and more frequently than their spouses. Intrahousehold impacts differed according to risk strategies. In areas with a lower-risk coping strategy (Dien Bien), seasonal jobs coincided with periods of less intense farming activities. During the absence of male family members, women temporarily made more domestic decisions. In areas with a higher-risk adaptation strategy (Ha Tinh), farming was planned for longer absences; thus decisions remained largely unchanged. Remittances invested into agriculture contributed to shortening the recovery period after disasters and, in some cases, diversifying farming systems. The migrant’s absence was offset by relatives and neighbors as essential labor reserves. New resilient farming systems need to be disaster proof, gender-sensitive and free up labor.