On-farm testing and dissemination of agroforestry among slash-and-burn farmers in Nagaland, India

This paper describes the structure and impacts of a development project in Nagaland India . The project was a large-scale experiment in participatory development that emphasised loca l technology based on farmer-led testing of agroforestry where farmers themselves selec t agroforestry technologies implement the field tests and assume responsibility for disseminat - ing the results locally. This assessment suggests that agroforestry has spread rapidly and bee n primarily adopted on land that otherwise would have been used by traditional farmers for swidden agriculture. Thus Nagaland appears to be on a path to intensifying its land use base d on agroforestry which is likely to brake deforestation rates. The high rate of scaling up wa s due to an effective property rights system access to a large and growing timber market a continual process of internal monitoring and evaluation provision of low-cost seeds an d seedlings and a participatory project strategy with interventions based on flexibility and community empowerment .

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