The health of the planet depends upon the survival of the rainforest. These majestic woodlands of the tropics supply essential pharmaceutical compounds used in one-quarter of all prescription drugs, reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases, moderate global atmospheric temperatures and precipitation, supply most of the world's demand for hardwoods, and provide habitat to as many as one-half of the world's species.
Rainforest destruction everywhere in the tropics is a growing international concern, but nowhere is the devastation greater than in the Brazilian Amazon, where between 10 and 30 percent of total global tropical forest loss occurs each year. And nowhere in the Amazon is deforestation occurring more quickly than in the colonization projects of the western Brazilian state of Rondonia.
“During the last three decades, Rondonia has been the site of an extensive agricultural colonization program,” explains John Browder, professor of urban affairs and planning at Virginia Tech. “This development program, co-financed by the World Bank, promoted ecologically inappropriate farming practices, causing the world’s highest deforestation rates in a rainforest region. The resulting patterns of land-use mismanagement have resulted in a progressive process of social and economic impoverishment of the rural population and continued reliance on the ‘slash and burn’ conversion of forests to farmland.”
Satellite images support estimates that about 20 percent of Rondonia’s natural forests were cleared and burned by colonists between 1970 and 1997. Yet a growing number of colonists respect the forest and wish to plant trees with crops, an ancient practice called agroforestry that they are reinventing. In 1992, Browder conducted a survey of 240 farmers and found that more than one-half wished to integrate tree planting into their farming systems if it was feasible.
To help make this possible, Browder developed the Rondonia Agroforestry Pilot Project. The first phase of the project began in 1993 and lasted through 1996. A generous grant from the John and Teresa Heinz Charitable Trust made the project possible.
To implement the project, 50 farmers, representing the diverse spectrum of the rural population in Rondonia, received assistance in developing agroforestry systems of their choice on degraded crop fields. Farmers selected the crops they wanted from a menu of 24 species. Browder directed the project and supervised all aspects of its design and monitoring. To measure project results, a comparable number of similar farmers who did not receive project assistance served as a control group. Browder documented the project’s success through satellite image analysis and periodic farmer surveys.
The project seeks to provide income generation by the rural poor while conserving tropical forest. To accomplish this, Browder identified three objectives:
1. Demonstrate that small-scale farmers who successfully establish agroforest plots will earn higher incomes than other farmers;
2. Show that farmers who do earn higher incomes from planting trees and managing agroforests on degraded fields will clear less primary forest than other farmers; and
3. Provide useful information on agroforestry development to policy makers, corporate investors, and planners of other forest conservation projects in the tropics.
The agroforestry pilot plots are located on degraded crop fields (not in areas of undisturbed forest). Each plot contains between three and 18 species and represents an agroforest system that typically involves three income generating activities. Short-term practices of one or more years include beekeeping for honey and wax, and inter-cropping of temporary food and cash crops with young fruit and timber tree species. Mid-term activities, from four to 10 years, are the cultivation of commercial fruit, palm, nut trees, and shrub species that improve soil quality, block wind, and provide shade and other ecologically useful functions. Long-term products that take 10 or more years are industrial softwoods and long-growing commercial hardwoods, such as mahogany, Brazilian cedar, cherry, and teak.
“Seedlings were produced on a project-funded nursery located inside Rondonia and supplied to participating farmers free of charge, thereby overcoming the key financial barrier to innovation that most of Rondonia’s farmers face,” Browder says. In return, farmers invest their own labor to plant and maintain the seedlings. To enable project evaluation, Browder developed several ongoing research activities: a soil chemistry analysis of each agroforest plot prior to planting; a detailed study of division of labor by gender on each farm; land-use analysis of each farm using ground surveys and satellite images; a socio-economic survey of each farm household; and semi-annual and annual plot maintenance visits to measure seedling growth and resolve plot management problems
A doctoral student, Marcos Pedlowski, was assistant project manager until last year. He visited the farmers and measured seedlings and solved other plot-related concerns.
“Preliminary results from Phase I of the Rondonia Agroforestry Pilot Project have been encouraging,” says Browder. More than 27,000 trees were planted on 50 farms between 1993 and 1995. Of the original 50 farmers who joined the project, 75 percent were still maintaining their agroforest plots after three years, “a significant achievement by international development standards.” Several farmers have increased the area of their plots using their own financial resources, and neighboring farmers have adopted agroforestry practices independently of the project.
Although initial results are encouraging, the success of the project is not a foregone conclusion. “To ensure the success of the first phase, critical new work remains to be done in the project’s second phase,” Browder says.
As young trees begin to bear fruit, local, national, and international markets must be identified. The compatibility of certain plant species must be determined. “In the second three-year phase, we will closely monitor different species combinations within specific soil classes,” says Browder. “This study will have an impact on long-term guidelines for future agroforestry development projects.”
Several sociological issues must be answered to ensure the success of the second phase. For instance, how does the agroforestry plot, once it reaches a productive stage and requires additional labor for crop harvest, affect the workloads of men, women, and children differently? Children grow up and leave “empty nests” in Rondonia, as they do everywhere, removing a source of unpaid labor, says Browder. “Critical sociological issues remain as the demographic characteristics of participating families evolve.”
Also, “the introduction of a new labor-intensive or labor-saving activity could have important implications for farm income, household diet, and public health,” he notes.
Whatever the outcome, the ongoing research will be documented for future study. If predictions are correct, the information produced by the research will provide policy and investment recommendations on appropriate agroforestry development, demonstrate incentives to farmers to adopt agro- forestry systems, and illustrate strategies for galvanizing local institutional development to make agroforestry development self-sustaining after the project ends.