Basic Agroforestry
Status:
current 
Basic Agroforestry is an ongoing program created to provide opportunities to small-scale and subsistence farmers in tropical lowland Peru for the implementation of reforestation and tree-based agriculture as part of an ecologically- and economically-sustainable way of life. Simply put, agroforestry (or agriculture centered around the management of productive trees for fruit, timber, and many other products) offers tremendous benefits and has been recognized by countless international organizations as one of the great hopes for improved quality of life among the world’s rural poor and for a truly sustainable global future.
With semi-migratory slash-and-burn agriculture the norm in the Peruvian Amazon for at least the last two generations, the international popularity of agroforestry has been slow to catch on in the region, despite the effort of noteworthy governmental institutions and NGOs such as ICRAF-Perú and the Association for Ecological Agriculture (AAE). Abundant research has been carried out proving the superiority of agroforestry systems in providing higher and longer-sustained income for small farmers. What is missing is not research or experimentation but rather the contagious power of example: more farmers taking the initial risk of the unfamiliar and embracing agroforestry practices. Where agroforestry systems are concerned, this “risk” refers to the costs of obtaining or propagating the tree seedlings central to the systems, expenditures which far outstride the cost of seed for common annual products like corn or rice.
Basic Agroforestry is a program designed to buffer much of the risk involved in creating perennial and tree-based agroforestry systems on the lands of local farmers. We believe that by making high-quality tree seedlings readily available for reduced or no cost, coupled with the offer of training seminars and workshops with the participation of applauded local organizations like the AAE, planting productive trees for ecological restoration and economic growth becomes no risk at all.
In 2008 we received a grant for the first year of operation of
the Basic Agroforestry project in the community of Baltimori, the home of our reforestation center on the Tambopata River. Our goal for the planting season of 2008-2009 is to install agroforestry systems of a quarter hectare (half acre) on the farms of all voluntarily participating farmers from among the community’s 25-plus families. The second year involves increasing the agroforestry plots to a full hectare per participant, deepening the experience of the farmers through workshops and regular meetings. It is our hope to extend this program to neighboring communities along the Tambopata River by 2012, offering a nucleus in Baltimori as a productive example to inspire interest throughout the region.
The following are excerpts from a grant proposal in support of this project (2008). For further information or to support this cause, please contact Camino Verde: info@caminoverde.org
The proposed project’s target population is the 20-30 families in the rural, agricultural and extractivist community of Baltimori on the Tambopata River in the southern Peruvian Amazon. These families, including indigenous and mestizo (non-native) people from the rainforest and the Andean highlands of Peru, have been traditionally isolated and marginalized by the community’s great distance from opportunities to market agricultural products, necessitating alternatives such as high-value crops and efficient, sustainable practices. The community is also the site of Camino Verde’s center for studies in alternative and sustainable agriculture and reforestation and the location of much of our work in the past. The fundamental aim of this project is to provide otherwise unattainable opportunities to sustainably diversify the high-value crops grown by the farmers of Baltimori, thereby improving quality of life and income for these poor but hard-working people.
In the last several decades, the work of humanitarian aide groups in the tropical third world has confirmed the efficacy and sustainability of agroforestry systems, meaning agricultural models that focus on trees and mimic forest ecosystems in order to maximize production per unit of area, derail short-sighted slash-and-burn techniques that impoverish soil and people, diversify products, and provide a truly sustainable solution in the face of worldwide trends of topsoil loss and destitution. Additionally, agroforestry practices mimic indigenous farming techniques, providing cultural affirmation and validation of native knowledge, priceless commodities in an age of ethno-degeneration and globalization.
With this background, Camino Verde designed a program that will make possible the planting of complex agroforestry systems involving multiple commercial products and several side-benefits (including organic soil improvement and, importantly, the sequestration of atmospheric carbon by the long-living hardwood trees incorporated into the systems). It is a truism that organic agroforestry systems, while highly efficient and economically productive, are more expensive to install than conventional crops. As a result, very few small-scale farmers anywhere in Peru have made the shift from destructive conventional agriculture to agroforestry or ecological agriculture. In a casual survey, over two-thirds of the members of the rural community of Baltimori, Peru expressed enthusiastic interest in establishing agroforestry systems on their farmlands.
The present project will directly employ funding to install agroforestry systems (read: plant beneficial and productive trees) on the deforested lands of Baltimori’s farmers. In the project’s first year, each participating farmer will be aided in the installation of a quarter hectare (half acre) of trees, between 50 and 100 trees per farmer. Funding will provide for the participation of up to 25 families. The evaluation of impact is easily quanitifiable in these terms. Any leftover funds due to lower participation will roll over into the project’s anticipated second year in which each farmer will be aided in the installation of a half hectare (1 acre) of trees. The project will be carried out by Robin Van Loon, who has five years experience in working with native farmers, and with the technical support of the Association for Ecological Agriculture, experts in agroforestry with degrees from Peru’s most respected agronomic university and over ten years of experience in our region. The Peruvian government’s “IIAP nursery” and other local nurseries will provide the plants at low cost.
