Ebenezer Asaah

PUTTING PARTICIPATORY DOMESTICATION INTO PRACTICE IN WEST AND CENTRAL AFRICA

ABSTRACT The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) has been working in the African Humid Tropics (AHT) since 1987. Despite its natural wealth, small-scale farmers of AHT are among the poorest people in the world and have relied on extractive harvesting of forest products and traditional shifting cultivation for their food and other needs. After years of severe deforestation, alternatives now have to be found as land pressure has increased and commodity prices of cash crops have declined. To overcome these problems, the Participatory Domestication of high-value indigenous fruit, nut and medicinal trees is seen as one way of empowering rural households to improve their own situation. Many products of indigenous trees have existing local and regional markets, with additional potential niches in international commerce. In Participatory Domestication, villagers are helped to develop local nurseries, taught skills of vegetative propagation, and assisted with the technical implementation of selecting superior trees for cultivar development, that meet specific market-oriented ‘ideotypes’. Farmers are enthusiastically adopting these techniques and are thereby improving their own livelihoods. The most successful community is expecting to make

Evidence that subsistence farmers have domesticated indigenous fruits (Dacryodes edulis and Irvingia gabonensis) in Cameroon and Nigeria

US 10,000 in 2005 from the sale of improved cultivars from its nursery. The AHT tree domestication programme started in two villages in 1998, now 42 villages in two Provinces of Cameroon are active partners, and the programme has been extended to other countries. Currently, about 5000 farmers are practising participatory tree domestication techniques: 3500 in Cameroon, 1000 in Nigeria and 500 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The programme has also started in Equatorial Guinea and will soon be expanding to Ghana, Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone and Liberia. This paper describes the steps used to implement a participatory approach to tree domestication, and the lessons learnt. It also examines the perceived advantages and disadvantages of domestication, as well as the constraints and opportunities. The critical importance of local processing and value-adding for improved storage of products with short shelf-life is discussed as a means to ensure that the market for agroforestry tree products expands in parallel with the supply.

Impacts of participatory tree domestication on farmer livelihoods in West and Central Africa

Ten fruit and kernel traits were measured in 152 Irvingia gabonensis and 293 Dacryodes edulis trees from 6 villages in Cameroon and Nigeria. Frequency distribution curves were used to examine the range of variation of each trait of each species in each village and aggregated into national and regional populations. There were differences between the village sub-populations, with regard to the normality (e.g., mean kernel mass of D. edulis) or skewness (e.g., mean flesh depth of D. edulis) of the distribution curves and in the degree of separation between the individual village populations along the x axis, resulting in the development of a bimodal distribution in the regional population. For all traits, populations of both species differed significantly between countries, but only in D. edulis were there significant differences between the Cameroon populations. On the basis of the results of this study, D. edulis can be said to be virtually wild in Nigeria but semi-domesticated in Cameroon, while I. gabonensis is wild in Cameroon and semi-domesticated in Nigeria. These results are discussed with regard to a hypothesis that the range and frequency of variation in the different populations can be used to identify five stages of domestication. From a comparison of the frequency distribution curves of desirable versus undesirable traits, and statistically identifyable changes in skewness and kurtosis, it is concluded that as a result of the farmers’ own efforts by truncated selection, D. edulis is between Stages 2 and 3 of domestication (with a 67% relative gain in flesh depth) in Cameroon, while I. gabonensis in Nigeria is at Stage 2 (with a 44% relative gain in flesh depth). In this study, genetic diversity seems to have been increased, and not reduced, by domestication.

Policy and Legal Frameworks Governing Trees: Incentives or Disincentives for Smallholder Tree Planting Decisions in Cameroon?

ABSTRACT Research on participatory domestication of indigenous trees in West and Central Africa started in 1996 with the objectives of increasing incomes of rural communities and improving their livelihoods by cultivating indigenous trees and developing strategies for marketing the produce. Though the study was conducted in Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, the present paper only presents data from Cameroon. In Cameroon, the original pilot nurseries have subsequently developed and grown to become Rural Resource Centres providing training in a wide range of skills as well as being the focal points for the diffusion of innovations. Some 200 village nurseries are now active and have become on-farm enterprises producing planting material both for local use and for marketing. Over the years, rural communities have increasingly reported improvements in their livelihoods, diet, health, income generation which have transformed their lives and given them encouragement for a better future. Livelihood surveys conducted in 2008 involved 298 farmers from 15 communities. Interestingly, one of the impacts has been that some young people have chosen to stay in their villages rather than to seek off-farm employment in local towns. Since 2008, tree domestication in Cameroon has also been integrated in a wider rural development programme in the West and North-West Regions, based on the concepts of multifunctional agriculture. This integrated approach to meeting the needs of poor rural communities is further empowering smallholder farmers to develop superior cultivars of indigenous fruits and nut trees and to produce planting stock of leguminous trees and shrubs for soil fertility replenishment. It has also encouraged entrepreneurism in the processing of agricultural products as well as tree products, and stimulated the development of markets for agroforestry tree products. Currently, over 6000 farmers from around 300 communities are engaged in this integrated rural development programme. This has been achieved by enhancing the capacity of technicians from NGOs, extension services and community-based organizations in the skills needed for tree domestication, agroforestry and value-addition at the community level.

Effectiveness of Grassroots Organisations in the Dissemination of Agroforestry Innovations

Agroforestry and planting trees on farmers’ fields have been reported as important elements in a strategy to meet the millennium development goals of poverty reduction and climate change improvement. However, their uptake seems to be constrained by factors both internal and external to the household and related to the policy and legislative environment. This paper examines the impact of these factors on farmers’ decisions to plant trees. Cameroon is used as a case to analyse whether existing policies and legislation governing trees support or discourage tree planting, using qualitative content analyses. Although their mission papers and statements suggest most national government policies in Cameroon address tree planting and agroforestry, actual legislation designed to follow up the policies mostly contradicts the poverty reduction goals. Often legislation and regulations are more conservation-oriented and do not provide a clear procedure to distinguish between products from trees found in the wild and those gathered from farmers’ fields.

FEASIBILITY OF FARMER-MANAGED VEGETATIVE PROPAGATION NURSERIES IN CAMEROON

Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger is the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for a reason: none of the other MDGs can be met without food security and economic development. Because 75 percent of the poor in developing countries live in rural areas, strengthening the agricultural sector can not only improve access to nutritious food, it does more – at least twice as much – to reduce rural poverty than investment in any other sector (FAO, 2011). The role of extension in this battle is clear; there is a great need for information, ideas and organisation in order to develop an agriculture that will meet complex demand patterns, reduce poverty, and preserve or enhance ecological resources.

Improving the Availability of Quality Planting Materials Through Community-Based Seed and Seedling Systems: The Case of Rural Resource Centres in Cameroon

ABSTRACT ICRAF and partners in West and Central Africa have been implementing a participatory tree domestication project since 1998. The project aims to diversify smallholder farming systems through the cultivation of indigenous trees to increase income and reduce slash-and-burn practices. Participatory evaluation of vegetative propagation techniques with farmers in pilot sites of the humid tropics of Cameroon indicates that with training and technical backstopping, farmers are able to propagate trees of their choice using rooting of cuttings and marcotts. This paper analyses the costs of plant production and highlights why many nurseries are running well below their potential. The authors recommend further efforts to simplify the methods, extend the training of nursery staff and promote marketing and market research.

Domestication of Irvingia gabonensis: 2. The selection of multiple traits for potential cultivars from Cameroon and Nigeria.

Increasing the productivity in both crop and agroforestry subsectors is one of the measures taken to improve food security and livelihoods of subsistence farmers. This improvement can only be realized if subsistence farmers have access to quality planting material. The lack of high-quality planting material has been repeatedly identified as a major constraint to greater adoption of agroforestry innovations. The recognition of this fact has led to the development of national seed and seedling programs. However, the low capacity of these programs, the sluggish growth of the private sector, and the demand of subsistence farmers means they are obliged to seek alternative models. This paper discusses results and experiences drawn from a community-based seed and seedling production and dissemination system in the Western Highlands of Cameroon. The system is built on the concept of a rural resource centre in which capacities of farmers were strengthened to multiply improved planting material of four food crops and five fruit tree species. The rural resource centres are now sources of quality seeds and seedlings for farmers and institutional clients. The system has effectively improved the on-time dissemination, accessibility, affordability, and availability of quality planting material which are obtained at affordable prices due to proximity and reduced transport and distribution costs. Income from selling improved planting material has become an incentive for rural resources centres and helps to ensure sustainability of the system. Availability of quality seeds was found to increase on-farm crop yields by 20–40 %, while demand for improved seedlings has surpassed supplies in participating communities. The successful dissemination of this approach requires much more than the transfer of knowledge and availability of improved germplasm; it involves supporting the capacities of the rural resource centres, building partnerships with a range of stakeholders, increasing the involvement and interaction of government services, improving storage and marketing strategies, and decreasing dependency on external resources. The main challenge of the future is how to make such a system sustainable. Furthermore, in addition to the challenge of projecting and meeting the quantitative demands of farmers and other stakeholders, issues of seed quality and genetic diversity still need to be addressed when designing and implementing effective seed supply strategies and policies.