The USAID Agroforestry Systems An Alternative to Meeting Haiti's Food, Fiber and Fuel Needs

A.H. Wahab, V. Cusumano and G.W. Koehler

No 261621, 20th Annual Meeting, October 21-26, 1984, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands from Caribbean Food Crops Society

Abstract: Because of a high ratio of population to arable land, extensive cropping and grazing practices, and ever increasing demand for fuel and wood products, Haiti's once abundant forestry resources rapidly are disappearing. The country's current forest resources are unlikely to meet growing levels of demand beyond this century unless consumption and production trends are reversed. Concurrently, the removal of forest cover is causing serious erosion problems and reductions of agricultural productivity. The US Agency for International Development has mounted a program of agroforestry that emphasizes the rapid propagation and distribution of improved multipurpose tree crop species throughout Haiti to address these problems. The underlying premise of the program is that Haitian peasants will intercrop forest, fruit and food crops and indirectly address the problems of deforestation and erosion provided acceptable returns are foreseen from such practices. Through Technical and socioeconomic research, efficient nursery techniques, and extension through local organizations, the program has planted over 11 million rapidly maturing multipurpose hardwood and fruit tree seedlings on 20,000 small-farmer plots. Many farmers who participated early in the program, which commenced in the spring of 1981, are now harvesting hardwood species for lumber and/or fuel needs.

Keywords: Crop Production/Industries; Land Economics/Use; Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 5
Date: 1984-10-21
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/261621/files/20_74.pdf (application/pdf)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/261621/files/20_74.pdf?subformat=pdfa (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:cfcs84:261621

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.261621

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 20th Annual Meeting, October 21-26, 1984, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands from Caribbean Food Crops Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().