Farmers’ Perception of Coffee Agroforestry Systems in an Area Targeted for Organic Certification in Burundi

Abstract

Taking into account the current understanding of a system by farmers is an important starting point in every project aiming at the economic and social development of human beings. In the process of organic certification of coffee growers, training sessions on various topics are conducted. In addition to these sessions, there are field visits to farms by experts. And it is most often done through a top-down approach. A household survey was carried out on a purposive sample of households in the zone of the central plateaus in Burundi. Data were collected using a questionnaire through smartphones. Data analysis was carried out using IBM SPSS Statistics software by calculating means, frequencies and cross-analyses of variables. Results show that, besides bananas that are deliberately considered as shading crops, Grevillea robusta is the most frequent shade tree which is present on 62% of coffee plots. It is followed by an indigenous tree: Ficus sp. which is present on 14.6% of plots, and a fruit tree, Persea americana present on 13.9% of plots. The effects of shade trees on soil properties are well recognized by farmers. For their search of certification (75% of farmers are involved in the process of organic certification), chemicals application is banned. Farmers use a locally-made biopesticide decoction. They prepare it from a set of five plants: Tephrosia vogelii, Solanum aculeastrum, Neorautanenia mitis, Capsicum frutescens, and Tithonia diversifolia. This research has proven that the integration of shade trees in coffee plots is a reality in the region.

The Embedded Agroecology of Coffee Agroforestry: A Contextualized Review of Smallholder Farmers’ Adoption and Resistance

“…Agroforestry coffee has economic benefits over full-sun systems as mentioned previously, providing additional outputs including firewood, fruits and medicinal plants [10]. The substitution of synthetic fertilizer also reduces farmers' production costs and breakeven sales prices thanks to tree litter, especially from nitrogen-fixing species, and mulching banana and plantain leaves and stems [3,4,11]. This benefit is especially important in the South and East African context where, according to a study by Quinion et al [6], soil nutrition is "the main constraint to agricultural productivity" in the region, "especially nitrogen and phosphorous."…”

“…Moreover, agricultural modernization efforts have established practices that are damaging to ecosystems, including causing the loss of biodiversity [10]. In the case of Burundi, coffee was introduced by foreign-occupying authorities in full-sun monoculture systems through what [11] describes as a coercive process, which generally continues a century onward. Nevertheless, according to this study's survey of farmers, the agronomic and economic benefits of coffee agroforestry are widely accepted and interest in implementation by members of cooperatives is substantial [11].…”

“…In the period from January 1980 to December 2022, the fertilizer price index rose 3.6 times faster than the price of arabica coffee and 9.2 times faster than the price of robusta coffee (see Supplementary Materials Figure S1 and Table S1). In addition, agroforestry can provide growers with a range of non-timer forest products, which represent additional income [2][3][4][9][10][11]. Several studies have also shown that agroforestry systems can lead to higher yields and improved quality of coffee beans.…”