Tropentag, September 19 - 21, 2012 in Göttingen "Resilience of agricultural systems against crises"

Ecosystem Services from Smallholder Agriculture through Slash-and-Mulch Based Agroforestry on Hillsides of Central America

¹International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Soils Reseach Area, Colombia
²Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) of the CGIAR, Sri Lanka
³Universidad Nacional de Agricultura (UNA), Honduras
⁴Instituto Nicaraguense de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA), Nicaragua
⁵National University, Colombia
⁶Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria (CORPOICA), Colombia
⁷World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Kenya
⁸International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada
⁹University of Western Australia, Australia
¹⁰National Agricultural University, Nicaragua
¹¹FAO-Panama, Panama
¹²Universidad del Valle, Colombia
¹³International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Sri Lanka

Abstract

Ecosystem services (ES) can be defined as the benefits that people get from nature. They embrace provisioning (e.g., food and freshwater), regulating (e.g., regulation of climate and maintenance of soil quality); supporting (e.g., primary production and nutrient cycling); and cultural (e.g., educational and inspirational values) services. Generation of ES by smallholder farming communities on hillsides of Central America has been severely affected by the extensive use of traditional-unsustainable practices combined with anthropogenic pressures and climatic variability. The Quesungual Slash and Mulch Agroforestry System (QSMAS) has been demonstrated as a land management strategy with high potential for generating multiple ES in these agroecosystems. QSMAS is a smallholder production system that combines basic management principles applied with simple technologies to improve the use and conservation of vegetation, soil, and water in drought-prone areas of the sub-humid tropics. It has been successfully promoted as an alternative to the traditional slash and burn (SB) agriculture. Research work conducted in Honduras between 2005 and 2009 showed that QSMAS contributes to food security through a sustainable increase in productivity of maize (Zea mays L.) and common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), and by enhancing the resilience to extreme weather conditions (water deficit and excess), compared to the traditional SB system. In addition QSMAS enhances the generation of other ES at agroecosystem scale by contributing to the restoration of degraded resources (soil and biodiversity) at plot and landscape scales, and by reducing deforestation, soil erosion and global warming potential compared to the SB system. Experience from on-farm participatory validation in Nicaragua and Colombia suggests that slash-and-mulch based agroforestry systems have high possibilities of acceptance by local authorities and adoption by smallholders in vulnerable agroecosystems. Agroecoregions with potential for adaptation and adoption of QSMAS have already been identified, based on site similarity analyses integrating biophysical and socioeconomic conditions. Additional studies are being conducted to evaluate the feasibility of QSMAS' integration with silvopastoral systems in smallholder farms of Nicaragua, and to use the system as a strategy for restoration and conservation of biodiversity in El Salvador.

Keywords: Bean, maize, QSMAS, Quesungual slash and mulch Agroforestry System, slash-and-burn, sorghum

Contact Address: Aracely Castro, International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Soils Reseach Area, Recta Cali-Palmira, km 17, 6713 Palmira, Colombia, e-mail: a.castrocgiar.org