Climate-smart sustainable agriculture in low-to-intermediate shade agroforests

Blaser, Wilma J.; Oppong, J.; Hart, Simon P.; Landolt, J.; Yeboah, Edward; Six, Johan

doi:10.1038/s41893-018-0062-8

Cited by 186 publications

(153 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…This would suggest what methods farmers within these income quartiles are already using. We found canopy openness to have a marginal influence, which somewhat contradicts previous studies assuming a trade-off between shade management and yields (Zuidema et al, 2005;Blaser et al, 2018). However, this could be related to the relatively small variation in shade management we encountered and that we were not comparing smallholder plots with intensively-managed, mono-cropped cocoa farms.…”

Section: Relaxing Ecological Limitscontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, little research, thus far, has considered a more holistic view of cocoa cultivation and there remains a dearth of knowledge on the dependence of cocoa production on its surrounding ecology. The largest focus of ES research in cocoa cultivation has been on the importance of maintaining shade for ecological co-benefits (e.g., biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration) (Zuidema et al, 2005;Tscharntke et al, 2011;Blaser et al, 2018); however, there are other "ecological" cultivation strategies that can be harnessed by farmers to impact cocoa yields, such as weeding, composting, pruning and intercropping. In light of these gaps in the literature, we present an integrated approach that combines detailed ecological and socio-economic data to produce a novel case-study of an African forest-agriculture landscape.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Ecological Limits of Poverty Alleviation in an African Forest-Agriculture Landscape

Morel

Hirons

Sasu

et al. 2019

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Cocoa yields in Ghana remain low. This has variously been attributed to low rates of fertilizer application, pollinator limitation, and particularly dry growing conditions. In this paper we use an African forest-agriculture landscape dominated by cocoa (Theobroma cacao) to develop an ecological production function, allowing us to identify key ecological and management limits acting on cocoa yields simultaneously. These included more consistent application of fertilizers inter-annually, distributing rotting biomass throughout the farm and reducing the incidence of capsid attacks. By relaxing these limits, we estimate plausible increases in yields and, by extension, farm incomes. Our analysis reveals that resulting increases in cocoa yields requiring both ecological and intensive management interventions could be significant (113 ± 60%); however, benefits are disproportionately realized by the wealthiest households. We found that wealthier households benefited proportionally more from ecological intensification methods (e.g., leaving more rotting biomass in their farms) and the poorest households benefited proportionally more from capital-intensive intensification methods (e.g., pesticide and fertilizer applications). We treated poverty as multi-dimensional, and show that only certain dimensions of poverty (school attendance, assets, and food security) are significantly related to cocoa incomes, while several other dimensions (access to clean water, sanitation and electricity, and infant mortality) are not. We explore how increased household cocoa incomes could impact different dimensions of poverty. Our findings suggest, that if all households adopted the optimal level of each of these management options, and in so doing had similar poverty profiles to those households already managing optimally, we would see the community-averaged probability: a child of a household misses school decrease from 47 to 31%, a household would be able to acquire assets increase from 40 to 59% and a household would have access to an adequate amount of food increase from 62 to 79%.

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Section: Relaxing Ecological Limitscontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ecological Limits of Poverty Alleviation in an African Forest-Agriculture Landscape

Morel

Hirons

Sasu

et al. 2019

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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“…Maintaining tree cover in forest-derived agroforestry (Figure 3) might be associated with lower yields (Blaser et al, 2018;Perfecto et al, 1996) and establishing openland-derived agroforests instead of forest-derived ones might come at extra direct costs (Ruf, 2001;Tscharntke et al, 2011). Incentives such as sustainability certification schemes could, however, make both economically viable (Philpott & Dietsch, 2003;Tscharntke, Milder, Rice, & Ghazoul, 2014 2010, Perfecto et al (1996), Philpott et al (2008) Legacy effects (Salzman, Bennett, Carroll, Goldstein, & Jenkins, 2018).…”

Section: Incentivizing Positive Land-use Trajectoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land‐use history determines ecosystem services and conservation value in tropical agroforestry

Martin

Osen

Graß

et al. 2020

CONSERVATION LETTERS

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Agroforestry is widely promoted as a potential solution to address multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals, including Zero Hunger, Responsible Consumption and Production, Climate Action, and Life on Land. Nonetheless, agroforests in the tropics often result from direct forest conversions, displacing rapidly vanishing and highly biodiverse forests with large carbon stocks, causing undesirable trade-offs. Scientists thus debate whether the promotion of agroforestry in tropical landscapes is a sensible policy. So far, this debate typically fails to consider land-use history, that is, whether an agroforest is derived from forest or from open land. Indeed, 57% of papers which we systematically reviewed did not describe the land-use history of focal agroforestry systems. We further find that forest-derived agroforestry supports higher biodiversity than open-land-derived agroforestry but essentially represents a degradation of forest, whereas openland-derived agroforestry rehabilitates formerly forested open land. Based on a conceptual framework, we recommend to (a) promote agroforestry on suitable open land, (b) maintain tree cover in existing forest-derived agroforests, and (c) conserve remaining forests. Land-use history should be incorporated into landuse policy to avoid incentivizing forest degradation and to harness the potential of agroforestry for ecosystem services and biodiversity.

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“…Midday temperatures are reduced by up to 6 C under a canopy of Faidherbia albida (faidherbia) trees in Ethiopia compared with open fields, 29 and trees also reduce temperature at field level in Ghanaian cocoa agroforests. 30 Furthermore, the presence of trees buffers temperature fluctuations, helping to maintain 32 The impacts of agroforestry trees on climate at larger scales are positive and similar to those of forests; trees reduce temperatures and help mitigate climate change. [33][34][35][36][37] Water Trees modify soil structure directly through root growth, reducing soil compaction and increasing water retention and infiltration.…”

Section: Agroforestry-driven Environmental Changementioning

confidence: 99%