IUFRO Project Group (Agroforestry) Announcement

[AFS069 at BANGOR.AC.UK]

IUFRO Project Group P1.15-00 - Agroforestry


Contents

Launch of new working parties
Call for membership
20th IUFRO World Congress, Tampere, Finland, 1995 - 
Announcement
Call for papers



Launch of new working parties

The launch of new working parties in the IUFRO Project Group 
P1.15-00 on agroforestry was made as part of a welcome address 
(reproduced below) by the Project Group leader to the international 
symposium on 'Agroforestry and land use change in industrialised 
nations' held at the Humboldt University, Berlin, on 30th May, 1994.

'It is an honour, as well as a pleasure, for the IUFRO (International 
Union of Forest Research Organisations) Project Group P1.15-00 on 
agroforestry to be associated with this international symposium.  There 
are two reasons why the symposium is particularly opportune:  firstly, 
the timing and secondly, the theme.  The timing is opportune because 
it coincides with the launch of a series of working parties within the 
Project Group which I hope that some of you will have an interest in, 
and with the appointment of a new set of officers (Table 1), to 
invigorate the activity of the group and to define a useful role for 
IUFRO in the international co-ordination of agroforestry research.  It 
also occurs at a time when the agroforestry contribution to the 20th 
IUFRO World Congress, which is to be held in Tampere, Finland, in 
August 1995, is being planned.



Table 1  List of Project Group officers

Agroforestry group, P1.15-00

Project Group Leader, Fergus L. Sinclair, Bangor, UK
Project Group Deputy, Khosla Prem Kumar, Solan, India
Project Group Deputy, Professor Hsiung, Nanjing University, China
Project Group Deputy, Appointment to be confirmed

Temperate agroforestry working party, P1.15-01

Working Party Chair, Michael Gold, Michigan State University, US
Working Party Co-Chair, Alan Sibbald, MLURI, Aberdeen, UK

Tropical agroforestry working party, P1.15-02

Working Party Chair, Fredrick Owino, ICRAF, Kenya
Working Party Co-Chair, John Beer, CATIE, Costa Rica

Fundamental research and modelling in agroforestry working party, 
P1.15-03

Working Party Chair, Daniel Auclair, INRA, France
Working Party Co-Chair, Appointment to be confirmed

Adaptive and social research in agroforestry working party, P1.15-04

Working Party Chair, Khosla Prem Kumar, Solan, India
Working Party Co-Chair, Appointment to be confirmed



The theme of this symposium in Berlin, agroforestry and land use 
change in industrialised nations, is also particularly pertinent.  The 
agroforestry part of the title needs no further explanation but, leaving 
traditional systems aside for a moment, agroforestry research is often 
about adapting to changing pressures on land use, and, therefore, the 
theme as a whole is central to the concerns of the IUFRO agroforestry 
group; and, as evidenced by all of your attendance here today, to 
international scientific liaison in the subject area.  But, of particular 
significance, is the emphasis on agroforestry in industrialised nations.  
Much international prominence and research funding have been 
focused on tropical agroforestry, while there is also a wealth of activity 
in temperate zones.  Note for example the recent appearance of the 
Association for Temperate Agroforestry in North America with 
already over 150 members (Gold, 1994) and the expanding activities 
over the last five years of the Agroforestry Research Forum, in the UK 
(Sibbald & Sinclair, 1990; Sheldrick, 1993).  Indeed, it was the need 
for international fora focused on the concerns of agroforestry in the 
temperate zone, voiced particularly by researchers with a long history 
of experimentation and practical application of agroforestry in New 
Zealand (Knowles, 1991), that led my predecessor as leader of the 
P1.15-00 group, Bjorn Lundgren, to propose two working parties, 
centred around tropical and temperate agroforestry.

The motivation for the development of agroforestry practices has often 
been different in tropical and temperate zones.  This emerged 
forcefully during a previous international agroforestry conference with 
which the IUFRO Project Group was associated - 'Agroforestry: 
principles and practice', held in Edinburgh in 1989 (Jarvis, 1991).  At 
the Edinburgh meeting the overriding European concern was to reduce 
agricultural surplus, while in the tropics agroforestry was being 
promoted to increase and sustain agricultural production.  
Paradoxically, it has also been suggested that the fundamental research 
questions and approaches relevant to agroforestry in temperate and 
tropical systems may often have much in common (Sibbald & Sinclair, 
1990).  Agroforestry is characterised the world over by its complexity 
- both in terms of the interactions between the tree and agricultural 
components and by the heterogeneity of the mix of objectives and site 
types that farmers considering the adoption of agroforestry may have.  
This has led to the introduction of a second axis in the development of 
the IUFRO Project Group structure, with fundamental research and 
modelling at one end and adaptive and social research at the other.

Temperate and tropical concerns are unified by this second axis, and 
stress is placed on the requirement for developing an understanding of 
the underlying mechanisms of interaction that determine the 
productivity and environmental impact of agroforestry practices, rather 
than on the measurement of location-specific net effects of these 
interactions.  Such an approach is a precursor to the provision of 
informed decision support to farmers seeking to introduce or retain 
woody vegetation in a wide range of farming systems on various and 
variable site types (Anderson, Muetzelfeldt & Sinclair, 1993).  The 
requirements are particularly exacting because a scale of 
disaggregation has to be transcended; from understanding the crop or 
stand to that of the individual plant.  This needs to include vertical 
stratification of canopy and soil layers within which niche 
differentiation operates (Harper, 1977), and the horizontal spatial 
variation occurring both because of the variable spatial effects caused 
by trees and because of the baseline micro heterogeneity of soil in low 
input systems which have not been made uniform by conventional 
capital and support-energy intensive practices, such as the use of 
inorganic fertilisation, that characterize modern agriculture in 
industrialised nations.  However, despite this clear requirement for 
fundamental research, agroforestry is essentially an applied subject 
and so a tension is created between the inclination of those funding 
agroforestry research from a practical perspective and the necessity to 
address fundamental scientific questions, if practical solutions are, in 
fact, to be delivered.

International scientific co-operation within IUFRO might go some way 
towards highlighting and prioritising the fundamental scientific 
requirements.  From an adaptive perspective, there is evidence that the 
promotion of whole technology designs in agroforestry may be less 
effective than strategies based on incremental improvement of existing 
farmer practice, using trees adapted to the conditions in which farmers 
wish to grow them and that are familiar to the farmers themselves 
(Buck, 1990).  In this respect, in many parts of the world, the existence 
of significant indigenous ecological knowledge about tree species 
requirements, their interactive roles in farming practice and the nature 
of their products is emerging.  The four working parties are far from 
mutually exclusive - in fact they are designed to provide foci for 
international scientific exchange of information and approach across 
disciplines and to foster collaboration, one feeding off another.  It is 
envisaged that whilst it is unlikely that anybody would wish to be a 
member of all the working parties within the group, that some people 
may have active interest in two or three of them.  It is hoped that a 
number of smaller focused areas of activity will prove more useful 
than a single, more general forum.'


References

Anderson, L.S., Muetzelfeldt, R. & Sinclair, F.L. 1993. An integrated 
research strategy for modelling and experimentation in agroforestry.  
Commonwealth Forestry Review, 72(3): 161-174.

Buck, L. 1990. Planning agroforestry extension projects, the CARE 
International approach in Kenya.  In: W.W. Budd, I. Duchhart, L.H. 
Hardesty and F. Steiner (eds), Planning for agroforestry.  
Developments in landscape management and urban planning 6C, 
Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 101-131.

Gold, M.A. 1994. Editorial.  The Temperate Agroforester, 2(1): 1

Harper, J.L. 1977. Population biology of plants.  London: Academic 
Press

Jarvis, P.G. 1991. Preface.  Forest Ecology and Management, 45: 1-3

Knowles, R.L. 1991. New Zealand experience with silvopastoral 
systems:  a review.  Forest Ecology and Management, 45: 251-267

Sibbald, A.R. & Sinclair, F.L. 1990. A review of agroforestry research 
in progress in the UK.  Agroforestry Abstracts, 3(4): 150-164

Sheldrick, R.D. 1993. Agroforestry in the nineties:  a review.  
Agroforestry Forum, 4(3): 67-70



Call for membership


Registration Form - P1.15-00 Agroforestry


Name
Address




Telephone number
Fax number
E-mail address


You may register simply with the Project Group on agroforestry as a 
whole, but if you have an active interest in one or more of the working 
parties then please indicate your registration for the particular working 
parties that you wish to participate in.


Please return to:


Fergus L. Sinclair
IUFRO Project Group P1.15-00 Agroforestry
School of Agricultural and Forest Sciences
University of Wales
Bangor
Gwynedd
LL57 2UW


Tel:		0248 382459
Fax:		0248 382832
E-mail:		AFS069 at bangor.ac.uk



20th IUFRO World Congress, Tampere, Finland, 1995 - 
Announcement


There will be a full scientific programme on agroforestry spread over 
five two hour sessions (Table 2) during the congress and you are 
invited both to submit abstracts of papers for inclusion in the open 
session and to attend the congress itself.  The intention is to explore 
key areas of agroforestry research and to come to a policy statement 
regarding priorities in research over the next five years.  The main 
themes of the sessions are as follows:


Table 2  Timetable of sessions allocated to P1.15-00

session, date, time

1 - technical - fundamental research and modelling in agroforestry, 
Tuesday August 8, 14.00 - 16.00
2 - technical - adaptive and social research in agroforestry, Tuesday 
August 8, 16.30 - 18.30
3 - technical - open, Thursday August 10, 09.30 - 11.30
4 - technical - synthesis, Friday August 11, 13.00 - 15.00
5 - business, Friday August 11, 15.30 - 17.30


1.  Fundamental research and modelling in agroforestry - 14.00 - 
16.00, August 8, 1995

Research
Recent reviews have pinpointed below ground interactions in 
agroforestry as a key priority in research, therefore this will be the 
focus of the session.

1.1
Contribution of agroforestry trees to soil nutrient requirements of 
intercropped plants and synchronising nutrient release from tree root 
and leaf litter with crop uptake.

1.2
Root architecture in agroforestry in relation to soil structural 
amelioration and the manipulation of tree-crop interactions by shoot 
pruning.

Modelling
The requirements for disaggregated models that cope with vertical and 
horizontal spatial stratification have been identified and, therefore, this 
session will include presentations from key modelling groups taking 
different approaches to this.

1.3 
Modelling of above and below ground tree architecture in 
agroforestry.

1.4  
Modelling of the tree-crop interface.


2.  Adaptive and social research in agroforestry - 16.30-18.30, August 
8, 1995

2.1
Unification of diagnostic procedures across disciplines and scales.

2.2
Incorporation of indigenous knowledge and perspectives in 
agroforestry development.

2.3
Socio-economic evaluation of financial and non-financial costs and 
benefits of agroforestry development and the value of sustainability.

2.4
Agroforestry policy in developing and industrialised countries.


3.  Open technical session - 09.30 - 11.30, August 10, 1995

4.  Technical synthesis session - 13.00 - 14.30, August 11, 1995

The three major themes have been selected because they represent 
areas where international co-ordination and collaboration are of 
particular significance.  Each theme will be led by a presentation, and 
discussion aimed at arriving at recommendations for action, will 
follow and be continued in the relevant business sessions.

4.1
Database and knowledge base structures:  agroforestry databases and 
knowledge bases at a series of levels from that of the component to the 
whole system and landscape, and consideration of interfacing between 
them.

4.2
Networking:  critical consideration of agroforesty and social forestry 
networks at national, regional and global scales, in terms of their 
purpose and function viewed from the centre and from the periphery.

4.3
Development of a modelling environment for agroforestry:  led by a 
presentation of a working modelling environment within which 
modelling constructs appropriate to agroforestry can be combined by 
researchers.


5.  Business sessions

The business sessions will follow on from the technical sessions with 
the intention of prioritising action over the next five years and arriving 
at a contribution to the final policy statement from the meeting.

5.1  Fundamental research and modelling in agroforestry working 
party  14.35 - 15.00, August 11, 1995
5.2  Adaptive and social research in agroforestry working party 15.30 - 
15.55, August 11, 1995
5.3  Tropical agroforestry working party 16.00-16.25, August 11, 1995
5.4  Temperate agroforestry working party 16.30-16.55, August 11, 
1995
5.5  P1.15-00 whole group session to finalise an integrated policy 
statement 17.00-17.30, August 11, 1995


Call for papers

There is a call for papers relevant to themes identified above.  The five 
most appropriate will be selected by a committee comprising the 
P1.15-00 officers for presentation in a 20 minute slot during the open 
technical session from 09.30 until 11.30 on August 10 1995.  Abstracts 
of no more than one A4 page should be sent to the P1.15-00 leader, at 
the same address shown for registering membership of the group, to 
arrive no later than August 31, 1994.