Govt to take up agroforestry in a mission mode

New Delhi, Oct 12: The government would take agro forestry in a mission mode to maintain sustainable supply of raw material for wood-based industries and promote rural development through it.

A National Agroforestry Board will be constituted as one of the steps to achieve this objective.

This was the consensus arrived at by the Ministry of Forest and Environment, farmers, industrialists and other stakeholders at a two-day national workshop on Rural Development through Integration of Agro forestry and wood-based Industries.

The Board will be an autonomous body under the Ministry of Forest and Environment, mandated with the task to increase tree coverage under agroforestry and ensure sustainable supplies of raw material to the industry.

The workshop, on its concluding day today, came out with a set of recommendations which called for policy interventions to liberalise land ceiling limits, felling and transit of farm-grown wood, and also review of import of wood to ensure its proper price.

It called for setting up regulated timber trading markets to ensure support price for agro forestry products and avoiding exploitation of tree growers.

The workshop highlighted the need of a survey of all wood- based industries to assess the present status of raw material supply and future requirements.

The participants recommended that wood-based industries should identify villages in their vicinity to promote agroforestry and develop partnership between practitioners and stakeholder organisations.

They said there should be region wise identification of species to be grown under agroforestry and supply of genetically superior seedlings by State Forest Departments.

They also called for bringing under the Seeds Act the nurseries supplying planting stock for agroforestry to ensure the quality of the seeds suplied to farmers.

Promotion of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) among farmers was also stressed. CDMs refer to technologies that do least harm to environment.

The workshop also recommended institution of rewards and recognition to farmers.

Earlier, a number of farmers demanded that the Proposed National Agro forestry Board should have adequate representation from the farming community.

The workshop made strong recommendations for promotion of research in agroforestry models for value addition of the products enchance farmers' income. The workshop was held in scenario when most of the wood-based industries in the country are facing acute shortage of raw material for their full scale/economical operations.

The National Forest Policy expressed concern about shortage of raw material and suggested that the industries should obtain their raw materials from farmers and individuals by dealing directly with them.

Some wood-based industries like plywood and panel, pulp and paper have shown good results in the farm/agro forestry sector motivating farmers and individuals to grow more Poplar and Eucalyptus trees of improved quality.

The area under farm/agroforestry especially in Punjab, Haryana, Uttaranchal and western part of Uttar Pradesh has been growing over the past decades.

This has not only opened new avenue to the farmers but has provided opportunity to sustainable and livelihood security to rural people working directly or indirectly with this sector.

However, despite great potential of agroforestry to provide wood for the industries, raw material shortages is continuing and wood-based industries are facing problems.

The workshop was organised to assess the experiences hitherto gained and to identify the means to strengthen these efforts.

Representatives from scientific institutions, plywood and panel industries, pulp and paper industries, forest departments, farmers and other user Government/Public/Private organisations participated in the workshop.

It is proposed to prepare a stragety document based on the recommendations of the workshop.

UNI