Introductory Agroforestry

Classification

CLASSIFICATION OF AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS (NAIR, 1985)

• Structural basis: refers to the composition of the components, including spatial arrangement of the woody component, vertical stratification of all the components, and temporal arrangement of the different components. Hence on the basis of structure agroforestry system can be grouped into two categories.
A) Nature of components
B) Arrangement of components
A) Nature of components: Based on nature of component agroforestry systems can be classified into following categories

• Agrisilviculture systems/ silviagriculture/ agrosilviculture
• Silvopastoral systems/ silvipastoral
• Agrosilvopastoral systems/ agrisilvipastoral
• Other systems
• Note: Nomenclature of the system depends upon the prime importance of the component and the component given lot of space placed first in any agroforestry system for eg. Agrisilviculture in which prime component is agriculture crop.
• Agrosilviculture has a wide applicability and it covers in its scope integration of different components of farming system for eg. Vegetables, pulses, oil seed crops, cereals etc.
• Whereas agrisilviculture restricted only to integration of cereals with the tree crop



Plate 3.1 Classification of agroforestry systems on the basis of nature of components