mity of marketed products (Leakey et al, 2005) and enhance farmers' livelihoods (Schreckenberg et al., 2002; Degrande et al., 2006). Domestication can thus be used as an incentive for more sustainable food production, diversification of the rural economy, and to create employment opportunities in product processing and trade. The domestication of these species previously only harvested as extractive resources, creates a new suite of cash crops for smallholder farmers (Leakey et al., 2005). Depending on the market size, some of these new cash crops may enhance the national economies, but at present the greatest benefit may come from local level trade for fruits, nuts, vegetables and other food and medicinal products for humans and animals, including wood for construction, and fuel.
This commercialization is crucial to the success of domestication, but should be done in ways that benefit local people and does not destroy their tradition and culture (Leakey et al., 2005). Many indigenous fruits, nuts and vegetables are highly nutritious (Leakey, 1999b). The consumption of some traditional foods can help to boost immune systems, making these foods beneficial against diseases, including HIV/AIDS (Barany et al., 2003; Villarreal et al., 2006). These new nonconventional crops may play a vital role in the future for conserving local and traditional knowledge systems and culture, as they have a high local knowledge base which is being promoted through participatory domestication processes (Leakey et al., 2003; World Agroforestry Centre, 2005; Garrity, 2006; Tchoundjeu et al., 2006). Together these strategies are supportive of food sovereignty and create an approach to biodiscovery that supports the rights of farmers and local communities specified in the Convention on Biological Diversity.
A participatory approach to the domestication of indigenous trees is appropriate technology for rural communities worldwide (Tchoundjeu et al., 2006), especially in the tropics and subtropics, with perhaps special emphasis on Africa (Leakey, 2001ab), where the Green Revolution has been least successful. In each area a priority setting exercise is recommended to identify the species with the greatest potential (Franzel et al., 1996). Domestication should be implemented in parallel with the development of posthar-vest and value-adding technologies and the identification of appropriate market opportunities and supply chains. With poverty, malnutrition and hunger still a major global problem for about half the world population, there is a need to develop and implement a range of domestication programs for locally-selected species, modeled on that developed by ICRAF and partners in Cameroon/Nigeria (Tchoundjeu et al., 2006), on a wide scale. There will also be a need for considerable investment in capacity development in the appropriate horticultural techniques (e.g., vegetative propagation and genetic selection of trees) at the community level, in NARS, NARES, NGOs and CBOs, with support from ICRAF and regional agroforestry centers.
Agroforestry can be seen as a multifunctional package for agriculture, complemented by appropriate social sciences, rural development programs and capacity development. Better land husbandry can rehabilitate degraded land. For many poor farmers this means the mitigation of soil nutrient depletion by biological nitrogen fixation and the simultaneous restoration of the agroecosystem using low- |
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input, easily-adopted practices, such as the diversification of the farming system with tree crops that initiate an agroeco-logical succession and produce marketable products. Over the last 25 years agroforestry research has provided some strong indications on how to go forward by replanting watersheds, integrating trees back into the farming systems to increase total productivity, protecting riparian strips, contour planting, matching tree crops to vulnerable landscapes, soil amelioration and water harvesting. There are many tree species indigenous to different ecological zones, that have potential to play these important roles, and some of these are currently the subject of domestication programs. In this way, the ecological services traditionally obtained by long periods of unproductive fallow are provided by productive agroforests yielding a wide range of food and nonfood products. This approach also supports the multifunctionality of agriculture as these species and products are central to food sovereignty, nutritional security and to maintenance of tradition and culture. Additionally, women are often involved in the marketing and processing of these products. Consequently this approach, which brings together AST with traditional and local knowledge, provides an integrated package which could go a long way towards meeting development and sustainability goals. The challenge for the development of future AKST is to develop this "Localization" package (Chapter 3.2.4; 3.4) on a scale that will have the needed impacts.
This integrated package is appropriate for large-scale development programs, ideally involving private sector partners (building on existing models—e.g., Panik, 1998; Mitschein and Miranda, 1998; Attipoe et al., 2006). Localization is the grassroots pathway to rural development, which has been somewhat neglected in recent decades dominated by Globalization. Programs like that proposed would help to redress the balance between Globalization and Localization, so that both pathways can play their optimal role. This should increase benefit flows to poor countries, and to marginalized people. There would be a need for considerable investment in capacity development in the appropriate horticultural and agroforestry techniques (e.g., vegetative propagation, nursery development, domestication and genetic selection of trees) at the community level, in NARS, NARES, NGOs and CBOs, with support from ICRAF and regional agroforestry centers.
By providing options for producing nutritious food and managing labor, generating income, agroforestry technologies may play a vital role in the coming years in helping reduce hunger and promote food security (Thrupp, 1998; Cromwell, 1999; Albrecht and Kandji, 2003; Schroth et al., 2004; Oelberman et al., 2004; Reyes et al., 2005; Jiambo, 2006; Rasul and Thapa, 2006; Toledo and Burlingame, 2006).
Recent developments to domesticate traditionally important indigenous trees are offering new opportunities to enhance farmer livelihoods in ways which traditionally provided household needs (especially foods) as extractive resources from natural forests and woodlands (Leakey et. al., 2005; Schreckenberg et al., 2002). These new non-conventional crops may play a vital role in the future for conserving local and traditional knowledge systems, as they have a high local knowledge base which is being promoted through |