Costs, Benefits, and Farmer Adoption of Agroforestry: Project Experience in Central America and the Caribbean

Developing countries are facing major challenges to their rural land use, including deforestation, increasing scarcity of tree products, and environmental degradation on fragile agricultural lands. One of the ways they have responded to these problems is by promoting " agroforestry, " or on-farm tree establishment and management. Public agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international donors have supported agroforestry development efforts and are considering further substantial investments. But agroforestry activities have been poorly documented and project monitoring has been weak or nonexistent or has addressed administrative concerns only. To answer the need for hard data, an analysis of the costs, benefits, and farmer adoption of agroforestry was undertaken. This was the first large-scale study of farm-level profitability of agroforestry in the tropics and involved empirical work for twenty-one projects in Central America and the Caribbean.