Agroforestry and its importance to the livelihood of African farmers

With the rapidly surging population in developing Africa, the wide scale demand for food security is also expected to increase to around 50% to 80% by the year 2050, according to World Agroforestry Centre’s International Centre for Research in Agroforestry division in Africa.

Because of problems related to overpopulation, lack of sustainable and arable land, decrease in plot sizes, depleted natural resources and urbanisation, the current condition of agricultural systems in Africa should undergo revitalisation, transformation and improvement in policies and governance. By effectively implementing effective programmes, African livelihood can benefit from the agricultural sector.

Agriculture status in Africa

As of the moment, approximately 70% of African people are suffering from food insecurity, mostly affecting those poverty-stricken rural areas. Because of unemployment resulting in poverty, people lack the ability to access food and safe water. Most of the people who live in these areas rely on small-scale farming as their main source of livelihood, but because of the aforementioned challenges faced by the agricultural sector, people lack the necessary resources to use for farming and develop sustainable crops. Also, the lack of access to adequate water source is seen as a hindrance to the livelihood of many small-scale farmers, making them rely heavily on rain as the main source of water for their crops. But since drought season and floods are heavily increasing due to climate changes, soil erosion and inadequate water source are abundant in some regions.

Agroforestry and its promising benefits

The World Agroforestry Centre points out the importance of agroforestry innovation in the development of the agricultural sector for the livelihood of African people. In this technique, forest trees will be used, replanted and preserved to help cover crops from the heat of the sun during drought season and hold off the soil to prevent erosion and floods. Recently, Niger and Cote d’Ivoire are two of the many African countries that utilise agroforestry to help develop their agriculture and livelihood.

Cote d’Ivoire is known to provide around 30% of the cocoa supply around the world and the demand is continuously increasing to 2% every year. But because of the ageing trees, depleting soils and changing weather, the cocoa production in the country has declined despite the increasing demand during the early 1990s. As a result, the potential of the cocoa livelihood sector to yield substantial income for small-scale farmers is being obstructed by such challenges. Now, agroforestry helped farmers yield quality staples, rehabilitate ageing cocoa trees and prevent soil erosion. The World Agroforestry Centre also provided farmers with the latest technology and knowledge on how to further increase coca yields and how to utilise the programme to produce healthy forest trees.

Niger, on the other hand, has experienced a large scale deforestation during the 1970s, because of the increasing population’s need for additional housing. To date, the country excels in agroforestry by revitalizing the once deforested areas, allowing trees to re-grow. This has been used by farmers to provide their crops with fertile soil and protect them from sun, wind, flood   and other natural disasters. Now, the staple yields in the country is sufficient enough to provide food for the people and additional income for farmers.