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PRINCIPLES OF
AGROFORESTRY
DESIGN
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A
groforestry design involves deciding what will be
produced, selecting the components of the system,
and determining how they will be arranged. These
decisions also define how and when the components will be
established, and how they will be managed. It also includes
other considerations, such as how to support the enabling
environment for agroforestry.

Farmers have been designing agroforestry systems for

millennia – sometimes consciously, sometimes instinctively.
Professionals can support this process in several ways:

u by advising farmers who haven’t managed

agroforestry systems before, or farmers who are recent
migrants to a given agroecological zone
u by helping to ensure that the systems meet wider goals
(particularly environmental ones) in such a
way that farmers’ interests are not negatively affected
u by introducing farmers to new scientific knowledge
u by organizing or supporting collaborative design
processes that include all relevant stakeholders.

In this section, we outline three principles of agroforestry

design: farmer-centredness; aptness to people, place and
purpose; and synergy. Successful agroforestry interventions
follow these design principles. Interventions that ignore
them have a high chance of failure.

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The principle of
farmer-centredness

In designing agroforestry projects and

programmes, put the goals and aspirations of
farming families first, before considering how you
will meet other, wider goals.

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Farmers’ goals and aspirations

Smallholders and their families are as diverse as the land and living things
under their stewardship, but they also often have characteristics and
constraints in common. These may include the following:

u Very often, farming is not their sole or even their main source of
income.
u Their other commitments may leave limited time to spend on their
own farms.
u They tend to avoid risk because they are not wealthy enough to be
able to absorb financial losses without losing the ability to satisfy
basic needs.
u They tend to favour economic activities with short-term returns.
u They will not necessarily occupy their current property forever; for
example, they may want to leave for the city or to acquire a more
productive property.
u They may have a deep knowledge of local plants, animals, land and
agriculture; on the other hand, if they have recently migrated from
another region, they may have little local knowledge of their new
surroundings.

These characteristics shape the goals

and expectations that lead farmers to
grow trees on their land. Their main
motivations are to help meet their
needs for food and income, and to
protect the fertility and productivity of
their land. Trees may also have other
benefits, such as marking boundaries
or establishing the household’s rights
over land.

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Applying the principle
of farmer-centredness

Many institutions promote agroforestry to support other goals –

particularly environmental ones, such as biodiversity conservation, water
management, climate-change mitigation or land restoration. All of these
are valid goals, but they cannot override farmers’ priorities. Farmers
should not be ‘steamrollered’ by persuasive and enthusiastic professionals
into installing agroforestry systems that do not meet their needs.

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Rather, institutions should first ensure that their proposed interventions
meet the following requirements:

They should generate income or provide

useful products.

They should reduce the risks faced by farm households,

such as food and nutritional insecurity, threats to land
tenure and sovereignty, falling prices, droughts, pests and
RISK
diseases.

Once these requirements are met, institutions can consider how to

further their own goals without reducing the benefits to farmers. For
example, to support biodiversity goals, a programme to install shelterbelts
in pastureland might prioritize native species, especially keystone
species – providing that these generate the same benefits to farmers as
the alternatives. When these alternatives have higher establishment costs,
then farmers should be compensated for the extra expense
(see Incentives in Chapter 5).

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The principle of aptness
to place, people and purpose

In designing agroforestry projects and

programmes, remember that ‘one size fits
all’ does not apply: all agroforestry systems
need to be customized to local conditions.

The principle of farmer-

centredness guides the overall
approach to the design of
agroforestry systems by putting
farmers’ goals first. The principle
of aptness is about delivering on
these goals. This requires careful
consideration of the specific
characteristics of place, people
and purpose. Such locally
tailored interventions contrast
starkly with ‘off-the-shelf’
interventions based on inflexible
technical packages.

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Aptness to place

All agroforestry designs must be adapted to each

farm’s specific agroecological conditions: a system
cannot simply be transferred from one farm to the
next without considering the characteristics of each
farm – and each planting location within that farm. For
example, although shade trees can increase the biodiversity of cacao and
coffee plantations, as well as fulfilling valuable agroecological roles, the
natural shadiness of the site must be considered when deciding how many
shade trees to plant per hectare – which depends on which way it is facing,
on the surrounding landscape and on the cloudiness of the location. Our
sections From principles to practice: Key systems (Chapter 8) and Stories
from the front line (Chapter 9) provide other examples of how agroforestry
systems must match specific sites.

Aptness to people

The agroforestry system that is chosen must be

adapted to local knowledge, the capacity of the
farmer, and the availability of labour. Farmers
are usually highly skilled and often have detailed
knowledge of local soils, climate, indicator
species, pests and diseases, and crop management. However, their
knowledge is not boundless, and their skills and intuition may be limited
to those crops with which they are most familiar. Also, many farmers are
migrants, and they may have moved from areas that are very different to
their new locations. In practice, this means either that agroforestry systems
should centre on crops or products with which farmers are familiar, or
that supporting agencies must provide ongoing support (extension and
training), or both of the above. The more integrated the components of an
agroforestry system, the more labour is generally required, especially in
the first few years. For this reason, it is important to design and implement
systems that are not too large to be manageable given the amount of
labour that is available to the household or landowner.

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Aptness to purpose

In the past, agroforestry has sometimes been promoted

to farmers as a ‘silver bullet’ technology. In this
approach, more emphasis has been placed on adoption of agroforestry
itself than on specific products and species choice. By contrast, aptness
to purpose means that the agroforestry design, particularly the species
used and the products they yield, must correspond closely and rigorously
to farmers’ expectations. It is not enough for a system to be technically
effective. The product or products are central, while the agroforestry system
is viewed not as an end in itself but as a way of producing them.

Farmers’ species preference is strongly affected by available markets.

Trees take a long time to grow and to produce, and it is important to
consider whether markets are likely to be similar once the product
becomes available.

Feasibility

The principle of aptness incorporates the concept of

feasibility. Biological, economic, legal, logistic and
sociocultural constraints may make it difficult to shift from
an existing farming system to agroforestry. Planners must
analyse these constraints carefully and realistically, and
make sure that the plans they make take them into account.

The design process (see Design process in Chapter 5)

requires consideration of all these aspects of aptness.
Together, they make up the local agroecological, human and
economic context to which interventions must be adapted.
Design often includes a component of adjustment of generic
options (for example, multistrata cacao agroforestry) to
specific local contexts.

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The principle
of synergy

In designing agroforestry projects and

programmes, harness the full potential of
agroforestry by ensuring that trees, crops and
livestock interact in mutually beneficial ways
that sustain multiple ecosystem services.

To realize the full potential of agroforestry, systems must be designed

so that the components work together in a complementary way. This is
referred to as ‘synergy’. Basic levels of synergy can be achieved even in
simple agroforestry systems in which one crop or a few crops dominate,
and trees and livestock are added to provide additional products for the
household, income and ecosystem services. To achieve synergy, trees,
crops and livestock are arranged to make the best use of nutrients, water
and energy within systems, while managing the competition for them.

Full synergy is achieved when the productivity from an agroforestry system

is greater than it would be if the components were established in separate
monocultures. These agroforestry systems are ‘more than the sum of their
parts’. This is usually achieved by arranging trees, crops and animals in

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such a way that they have maximum interaction. Competition in these
systems is controlled by carefully selecting species that support each
other. For example, in successional systems, resource sharing between
different species is optimized by planting species with different life cycles,
which succeed each other over time. These systems are designed to mimic
the nutrient and water flows in natural ecosystems, such as forests, and
minimize the need to bring fertilizer in from outside the system.

Where possible, agroforestry systems should have a high diversity of

species. These not only provide a range of food and income opportunities
for farmers, but also increase ecological complexity and support
ecosystem services such as pollination, shade, soil fertility and biodiversity
conservation. Diverse systems benefit farmers by producing food and
products for sale, and improving the long-term productivity of the land –
while also contributing to local and global environmental benefits.
Some plant species produce substances that reduce the germination and

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growth of neighbouring plants. This is referred to as ‘allelopathy’. Trees
have more apparent allelopathic effects than other plant types. Local
communities usually have knowledge about which plant combinations
should be avoided. If that knowledge has been lost, or local people are
migrants to the area and do not have it, it is essential to consult a plant
specialist before introducing new, unknown combinations.5

5
The science of allelopathy is quite complex. See for example Rizvi SJH, Tahir M, Rizvi V, Kohli R, Ansari A. 1999.
Allelopathic interactions in agroforestry systems. Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences. 18(6): 773–796.
https://doi.org/10.1080/07352689991309487.

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