Policy interventions for scaling up agroforestry in Fiji

ABSTRACT

Agroforestry is recognised as a land management system balancing goals of environmental conservation with the socioeconomic needs of communities. In Fiji while traditional agroforestry is rapidly eroding due to modernisation and commercialisation of food systems, institutional agroforestry has failed to reintroduce trees in farming systems. This paper is a discussion on the challenges, opportunities, and policy interventions affecting agroforestry. Weak extension activities, lack of an institutional champion, organisational silos, lack of awareness and poor understanding of agroforestry, low focus on native trees, poor land and resource rights of women, and lack of economic incentives are among the major constraints to agroforestry adoption. An agroforestry policy should create enabling conditions for institutional support and coordination between diverse sectors, raising awareness and dissemination of success stories, harmonising traditional and modern agroforestry, mainstreaming gender in agroforestry decision making, strengthening agroforestry extension, generating short-term and long-term economic incentives, and agroforestry research and curricula development.

KEYWORDS:

• Agroforestry adoption
• challenges
• policy
• Fiji

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 *Traditional agroforestry practiced by farmers is an age-old system characterised by polycultural, intimate associations of plants and animals with high degree of intra- and inter-specific diversity of cultivated and protected native, wild and exotic species. Institutional agroforestry is the promotion of agroforestry activities by formal institutions (government and non-government organisations, academic and research institutions, regional and international bodies, donor agencies, and industries) characterised by primarily exotic tree species in well-defined rows and relatively low species interaction (Harrison & Karim, 2016).