Abstract
Agroforestry practices of farming communities are investigated in southern Punjab province, Pakistan. It is hypothesized that rural people of this areas are more inclined than elsewhere in the province to practice agroforestry due to greater profitability than cropping. A landholder survey revealed that the majority of farmers are inclined to plant trees on their land. Low accessibility of institutional credit is a constraint for both agroforestry farmers (AF) and non-agroforestry farmers. However, among AF respondents only 24% were found to need credit for agroforestry practice, as against nearly 76% for crop production. Mostly farmers were found to have positive perceptions regarding agroforestry practice, because they understand the multiple benefits from growing trees, compared with cropping where farmers face various constraints, including poor access to credit, natural hazards, and little support from local authorities. Further, effort to sensitize farmers that growing trees has multiple benefits compared to only cultivation of field crops can bring about change in farmer’s perceptions and attitudes in the Indus River basin, resulting in motivation for agroforestry adoption.
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Notes
Administratively, Punjab province comprises 8 divisions, each of which has four districts that have 2 or more Tehsil councils, and there are 5–15 Union Councils (UCs) or small towns in a Tehsil council. This administrative hierarchy has been adopted in several countries of the Indian sub-continent since British colonization.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Steve Harrison, Associate Editor of SSFO, for his useful comments and insights, and anonymous reviewers for providing constructive criticism on earlier versions of this manuscript. We thank Ameer Zada Hoot, Manager of Nestle Pakistan Ehsanpur center, for his valuable assistance with data collection while in the field and we are also sincerely grateful to the volunteers and farmers in Layyah and Muzaffargarh districts who donated their time to this work and contributed their views.
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Mahmood, M.I., Zubair, M. Farmer’s Perception of and Factors Influencing Agroforestry Practices in the Indus River Basin, Pakistan. Small-scale Forestry 19, 107–122 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-020-09434-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-020-09434-9