Browsing by department "VITRI – Viikki Tropical Resources Institute"

Along with rapid population growth, peri-urban environments have a great potential to improve urban food production. Especially, in developing countries people living in big cities are suffering from food and firewood shortages. Agroforestry could be a sustainable way to produce food and fuel in peri-urban areas, areas surrounding cities. For the development and the analyzing an agroecosystems, various recommendations and guidelines are in place. However, applying these recommendations and guidelines can be complicated and time consuming. The aim of this study was to create an agroforestry system design model which would be simple and easy to use. The model was created based on already existing agroecosystem analyzing and design models. From which publications by Altieri (1983); Agroecology – The scientific basis of alternative agriculture, Nair (1989); Agroforestry systems in the Tropics and Jaenicke et al. (1995); Towards a method to set priorities amongst species for tree improvement research – A case study from West Africa, where chosen to be applied. The study included three different stages: a development of the design model, testing the model and analyzing the model. The testing part was implemented in Dzivaresekwa, a peri-urban area of Harare, Zimbabwe. The data collection for design the agroforestry system consisted interviews of local farmers, project farm characterization and the interview of the project farm manager. Based on the data collected, suitable species and their arrangement were decided. The application of the design model required comprehensive data collection about the project farm’s farming possibilities. About four months was used for the whole design process. This might be too long for most of the farmers depending on agriculture as their only income. However, if the process is done for an entirely new farming system, the time can be found as reasonable. The model can be quite easily modified for each project in question. However, the testing of the model proved that some development should still be carried out. For example determining the suitable species should be simpler.