Short-Term Economic Benefits of Agroforestry: A Survey

Executive Summary: Increasingly the international development community is becoming aware of the important role that short-term economic benefits (those accrued during the first five years) play in peasant farmers' decisions to adopt agroforestry practices. This study is an effort to assess the current state of agroforestry economics, in particular, the quantification of short-term, on-farm economic benefits of agroforestry. A review of the literature identifies documents and studies which economically analyze several agroforestry practices and projects around the world. Additionally, a survey of informed sources provides an overview of on-going activities in the agroforestry economics field as well as identifies the principal players in the field. It was found that research and documentation work in this field has been limited in scope and generally, piecemeal in nature. Of the studies examined, a majority are based upon either research station field trial data or tenuous assumptions made during pre-investment analysis, rather than on actual results from farm level interventions. Only a very few cases were identified where short-term economic benefits of agroforestry have been quantified. The document concludes with recommendations to the Forestry Support Program on specific interventions that can be made in the agroforestry economics field.