vergreen agriculture, combining agroforestry with the principles of conservation farming is emerging as a cost effective and environmentally friendly method for increasing agricultural output and protecting farmer livelihoods in a sustainable manner. ECA works closely with globally recognized partners to bring this science-based approach to communities that need it most.
– Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Singh in Joint Press Conference in New Delhi, India – Hyderabad House, New Delhi, India November 08, 2010 1:00 P.M. IST
Our planet is currently faced with an unprecedented agricultural challenge. The population of the world is expected to continue to increase and reach 10 billion people. The area of new land available to be brought under cultivation is proportionally small and large areas of cultivatable land are lost each year to erosion and degradation. Climate change already entrained by the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere is now impacting agriculture and this impact is likely to increase as temperatures increase and droughts become more frequent in many grain producing areas.
A host of creative new approaches to food production and landscape conservation will be needed to address these challenges. One of the most promising is Evergreen Agriculture a modern innovation based on an old idea. Dennis Garrity, a pioneer in the development and documentation of Evergreen Agriculture has defined it thusly: “…the integration of trees into annual food crop systems…” (Garrity et al., 2010) and has set out the benefits that such an approach can provide, including:
(Derived from Garrity et al. 2010)
Evergreen agriculture is gaining international recognition as a suite of methods and an approach that works well and achieves success in harsh environments, where other development interventions have failed. Notably in Sahelian West Africa it has been notably successful in halting and reversing land degradation and desertification in some areas, improving people’s famine readiness and increasing their climate adaptation and climate change resilience. Using indigenous well adapted native species, farmers in these areas have been able to boost the production of staple foods, increase their holdings of livestock, increase their incomes and overall enhance their level of food security, even in the face of recent devastating droughts.
Evergreen Agriculture is an ecologically sound, knowledge intensive approach to agricultural production that helps people to address some of the most challenging food production issues that we currently face. Implementing it on a broad scale will be a major benefit to us both now and in the future.
Garrity, D.P. F.K. Akinnifesi, O.C. Ajayi, S.G. Weldesemayat, J.G. Mowo, A. Kalinganire , M. Larwanou, J. Bayala. 2010. Evergreen Agriculture: a robust approach to sustainable food security in Africa Food Sec. Vol 2, pp. 197–214