Zacharie Tchoundjeu

Agroforestry Tree Products (AFTPs): Targeting Poverty Reduction and Enhanced Livelihoods

Agroforestry tree domestication emerged as a farmer-driven, market-led process in the early 1990s and became an international initiative. A participatory approach now supplements the more traditional aspects of tree improvement, and is seen as an important strategy towards the Millennium Development Goals of eradicating poverty and hunger, promoting social equity and environmental sustainability. Considerable progress has been made towards the domestication of indigenous fruits and nuts in many villages in Cameroon and Nigeria. Vegetatively-propagated cultivars based on a sound knowledge of ‘ideotypes’ derived from an understanding of the tree-to-tree variation in many commercially important traits are being developed by farmers. These are being integrated into polycultural farming systems, especially the cocoa agroforests. Markets for Agroforestry Tree Products (AFTPs) are crucial for the adoption of agroforestry on a scale to have meaningful economic, social and environmental impacts. Important lessons have been learned in southern Africa from detailed studies of the commercialization of AFTPs. These provide support for the wider acceptance of the role of domesticating indigenous trees in the promotion of enhanced livelihoods for poor farmers in the tropics. Policy guidelines have been developed in support of this sustainable rural development as an alternative strategy to those proposed in many other major development and conservation fora.

Indigenous Fruit Trees in the Tropics: domestication, utilization and commercialization

[Extract] This book comprises 5 parts and 21 chapters discussing the domestication of indigenous fruit trees in Africa, Oceania, Latin America and Asia; and describes the biophysical and socio-economic aspects of Miombo fruit trees.

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

Vegetative propagation of Prunus africana: effects of rooting medium, auxin concentrations and leaf area

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.

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

The region of West and Central Africa is endowed with high-value fruit trees and medicinal plants, which are currently traded locally as well as on regional and international markets. Unfortunately, they are all exploited from the wild and there has been little or no focussed effort to domesticate and cultivate them. Prunus africana is one of these important medicinal plant under domestication. A series of nursery experiments were conducted to assess the effects of rooting medium (sawdust, sand and a 50:50 mixture of sand and sawdust), auxin concentration (0, 50, 100, 150, and 200 µg IBA), and leaf area (0, 5, 10, 20, and 25 cm2) on rooting success of juvenile cuttings of P. africana. The percentage of cuttings rooted was significantly greater (P < 0.05) in sawdust (80%), than in sand alone (72%) or in mixture with sawdust (71%). Leaf area also significantly affected the percentage of rooting. Leafless cuttings did not root and were all dead by week 6, but in leafy cuttings rooting ability increased proportionally with leaf area up to 20 cm2 (79%). Larger leaf cuttings (25 cm2) rooted at the same level as those of 20 cm2. The cuttings with the largest leaves also had the greatest mean number of roots per cutting (14 roots cutting−1), while those with the smallest (5 cm2) leaf area produced the fewest roots (5 roots cutting−1). The application of auxin (IBA) promoted rooting (P < 0.05) up to an optimum application of 100–200 µg IBA per cutting, but 300 µg was supraoptimal. It can be concluded that P. africana is amenable to vegetative propagation.

Improving livelihoods and nutrition in sub-saharan africa through the promotion of indigenous and exotic fruit production in smallholders' agroforestry systems: A review

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.

Quantitative descriptors of variation in the fruits and seeds of Irvingia gabonensis

SUMMARY The cultivation of indigenous and exotic fruits for sub-Saharan Africas domestic markets can bring increased revenues for smallholders and improve the diets of local consumers. There are, however, many bottlenecks which need to be addressed so that wider benefits from such activities are realised. Here, we describe key interventions being taken to address current constraints. For indigenous fruit trees, it is necessary to set priorities for which species to promote and to engage in participatory domestication for the improvement of yield, quality and germplasm delivery to farmers. For exotic fruits, ‘south-south’ transfer of advanced cultivars and the development of small-scale commercial suppliers of planting material are required to reinvigorate production. For both indigenous and exotic species, a focus on improving market value chains to bring greater benefits to producers is needed. We describe where further work is required to increase efficiency in the sector and to favour smallholder involvement.

Trees, agroforestry and multifunctional agriculture in Cameroon

Methods were developed to quantify variation in the fruit, nut and kernel traits using the fruits from four trees of Irvingia gabonensis, an indigenous fruit tree of west and central Africa. The measurement of 18 characteristics of 16–32 fruits per tree identified significant variation in fruit, nut and kernel size and weight, and flesh depth. Differences were also identified in shell weight and brittleness, fruit taste, fibrosity and flesh colour. Relationships between fruit size and weight with nut and kernel size and weight were found to be very weak, indicating that it is not possible to accurately predict the traits of the commercially-important kernel from fruit traits. Seven key qualitative traits are recommended for future assessments of the levels of genetic variation in fruits and kernels. These traits describe ideotypes for fresh fruit and kernel production.

DOMESTICATION OF DACRYODES EDULIS IN WEST AND CENTRAL AFRICA: CHARACTERISATION OF GENETIC VARIATION

Modern agriculture has deprived local communities in the tropics of their natural life-support system—the forest resource and the traditional knowledge about indigenous species—and this has not been replaced by employment opportunities or social services. This project in the west and northwest regions of Cameroon takes an innovative three-step approach to improving the lives of local people by establishing rural resource centres (RRCs) to: (i) Rehabilitate degraded land and promote food security through the use of nitrogen-fixing trees to restore crop yields and then the diversification of the farming system with new crops; (ii) Create income generation opportunities from village tree nurseries and the domestication of indigenous fruits and nuts for local and regional trade. Income is rising annually and currently averages

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

150,