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(7 ) Agroforestry is the interaction of agriculture and forestry. This includes
trees on farms and in agricultural landscapes, farming in forests and along
forest margins and tree-crop production, including cocoa, coffee, rubber
and oil palm. Interactions between trees and other components of
agriculture may be important at a range of scales: in fields (where trees and
crops are grown together), on farms (where trees may provide fodder for
livestock, fuel, food, shelter or income from products including timber) and
landscapes (where agricultural and forest land uses combine in
determining the provision of ecosystem services).
Plate 1: Agroforestry area planted with rubber + corn + banana
Any combination of agricultural crops and forestry crops is called
agroforestry. In the case of Alfonso Lista, Ifugao, rubber trees are used as
showed in Plate 1. Rubber can be of different species like Clone RRIM
3001 combined with pioneer corn. Matching of species can further
learned in Lesson 4 and the type of agroforestry that is formed due to its
combination is discussed in Lesson 3.
(8) Agroforestry is the management and integration of trees, crops and/or
livestock on the same plot of land and can be an integral component of
productive agriculture. It may include existing native forests and forests
established by landholders. It is a flexible concept, involving both small and
large-sized land holdings.
Scientifically speaking, agroforestry is derived from ecology and is one of
the three principal land-use sciences, the other two being agriculture and
forestry. Agroforestry differs from the latter two principals by placing an
emphasis on integration of and interactions among a combination of
elements rather than just focusing on each element individually.