National Agroforestry Policy.

This National Agroforestry Policy is a nationwide sectoral document aiming at (i) setting up a National Agroforestry Mission (or an Agroforestry Board) to implement the National Policy coordinating among various elements of agroforestry; (ii) improving the productivity, as well as employment, income and livelihood opportunities of rural households, especially of the smallholder farmers through agroforestry; (iii) meeting the ever-increasing demand of timber, food, fuel, fodder, fertilizer, fiber, and other agroforestry products; (iv) conserving the natural resources and forest; (v) protecting the environment and providing environmental security; and (vii) increasing the forest and tree cover from outside the natural forests. These goals can be reached through the following strategic objectives (i) encourage and expand tree plantation in complementarity and integrated manner with crops and livestock; (ii) protect and stabilize ecosystems, and promote resilient cropping and farming systems to minimize the risk during extreme climatic events; (iii) meet the raw material requirements of wood based industries and reduce import of wood and wood products; (iv) supplement the availability of agroforestry products (AFPs) reducing the pressure on existing forests; (v) promote ecological stability, especially in the vulnerable regions; (vi) develop capacity and strengthen research in agroforestry.
To make agriculture more productive and sustainable, the Policy envisages to (i) guarantee farmers stability and security of tenure rights, also to support a farmer’s strategy to invest in trees; (ii) invest in research, extension and capacity building and related services; (iii) improve famers’ access to quality planting material also through a nursery certification system.
Agroforestry can help in coping with rural poverty by (i) providing employment; and (ii) it is a tool to build resilience of farmers and rural people against threats of climate change and natural calamities.
In order to enhance more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems, main interventions proposed are (i) create simple procedures to regulate the harvesting and transit of agroforestry produce and simplify procedures, with permissions extended on automatic route; (ii) efficient system of data recording; (iii) involvement of educational institutions to ensure optimum use of land and water resources; (iv) provide institutional credit and insurance cover for agroforestry; (v) facilitate increased participation of industries dealing with agroforestry produce, especially in the areas of (a) production and supply chain development for high quality planting materials, (b) technology development and dissemination, (c) providing extension services to the farmers, (d) providing market information and future trends, (e) certification of nurseries, seeds and finished products, (f) developing agroforestry plantation on government lands on lease contract and in partnership with institutions; (vi) grant incentives to farmers for adopting agroforestry.
To increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, the document proposed to promote sustainable agroforestry for renewable biomass based energy. Furthermore, strategically applied on a large scale, with appropriate mix of species, agroforestry enables agricultural land to withstand extreme weather events, such as floods and droughts, and climate change.
As for Governance, an institutional mechanism is to be established for implementing the agroforestry policy. It will provide the platform for the multi-stakeholders to jointly plan and identify the priorities and strategies, for inter-ministerial coordination, programmatic convergence, financial resources mobilization and leveraging, capacity building facilitation, and technical and management support. The Ministry of Agriculture has the mandate for agroforestry;