Integrating agroforestry characteristics into agro-well-based agriculture

The major challenge for the dry-zone farmers in non-irrigated areas in Sri Lanka is water scarcity. This situation is a major barrier to the sustainable use of resources and maintaining income generation activities throughout the year. In this context, these farmers realized the need for another source of water. The strategy was the construction of large diameter wells (agro-wells) to tap the shallow groundwater in low-lying areas, either near the small tanks or the small streams. Since 1982, the rate of construction of agro-wells has accelerated with the interventions of the Agricultural Development Authority and the Provincial Council. Generally, cultivation of perennial crops using agro-wells is not common. Only seasonal crops are cultivated and income was obtained only during a particular period. As a new trend, some farmers in the dry zone of Sri Lanka used this shallow groundwater opportunity to cultivate perennial crops as well as seasonal crops throughout the year. Furthermore, farmers aimed to grow woody tree species for their timber requirements and economic purposes in their own agricultural land. A lot of farmers have realized that these woody trees such as teak and halmilla may be disturbing their crops. Therefore, they moved these trees to the marginal areas or tail end of the lands. In addition, some farmers attempted to maintain animal husbandry such as rearing cows under the perennial crops, using the shade and grass under the trees. This context provided a unique opportunity to explore this new land use pattern revealed in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, recently. Field research for this study was conducted covering 20 agro-well-based agricultural lands out of the total of 68 in the \u2018Aluth Divulwewa sub-watershed\u2019 in \u2018Yan Oya watershed\u2019, in the dry zone of Sri Lanka. The collected data was analyzed using qualitative and Quantitative methods. The land equivalent ratio (LER) has revealed that 90 % of the lands represent more productivity, and canopy cover has increased up to 41.5 % from 7.9 %. Further, evolution, composition, characteristics, layers, and spatial arrangements of these land use patterns, represent 100 % of agroforestry characteristics according to Nair\u2019s classifications. Thus, this context has successfully proven that these agro-well-based agricultural lands have been converted into \u2018more productive and diversified agricultural systems\u2019 with agroforestry characteristics.