Chapter 13 - Agroforestry Tree Products (AFTPs): Targeting Poverty Reduction and Enhanced Livelihoods: This chapter was previously published in Leakey, R.R.B., Tchoundjeu, Z., Schreckenberg, K., Shackleton, S., Shackleton, C., 2005. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, 3, 1–23, with permission of Taylor & Francis

Abstract

An analysis of the constraints facing smallholder farmers in the tropics has identified many interactions between environmental, social and economic factors that create the downward spiral of the “cycle of land degradation and social deprivation.” This paper examines the numerous likely impacts of both the domestication of agroforestry trees and the commercialization of their products, and identifies who are the winners and the losers from these activities – and especially evaluates how they impact on the livelihoods of the farmers who cultivate and market them. This concludes that there can be both winners and losers, but that the positive outcomes are maximized when the importance of community involvement is appreciated by external players, and when the communities themselves work together and use their own strengths to manage and use their resources effectively. This finding has important implications for policy interventions to further rural development programs targeting the Millennium Development Goals.