Speaker
Description
KEYWORDS
Agroforestry; Multivariate Sample Selection Model; Sahel; Tree Usage
INTRODUCTION
In the Sahel region, global warming drives the degradation of agricultural land. The Sahara Desert is expected to extend further south, turning formerly Sudanese climate zones gradually more Sahelian. This trend directly threatens the agricultural production of the region and thus food security and livelihood of the majority of the region’s population (Yobom 2020). International and local efforts to counteract land degradation have been intensified in the past decades (Cotillon et al. 2021). At the core land restoration initiatives is the promotion of practices such as agroforestry, i.e. the interaction of trees and agriculture (World Agroforestry 2024). The underlying aim of agroforestry promotion in the Sahel is to increase tree quantity. -diversity and the uptake of specific tree species (Mbow et al. 2021; UNCCD 2024). Past agroforestry adoption studies that rely on narrow indicators for adoption systematically exclude certain interactions of farmers with trees on and off their farmland (Amare and Darr 2020). We argue that especially in the Sahelian context informal farm-tree interactions that are e.g. culturally rooted (Cotillon et al. 2021), fall through the grids of research and thus interventions and policies. We therefore hypothesize that established agroforestry adoption determinants differ, when farm-tree interactions are considered in more detail. In past studies, information and knowledge have been found to be main drivers for agroforestry adoption (Amare and Darr 2020; Arslan et al. 2022). We therefore focus on smallholder’s information seeking behaviour regarding agricultural information and expect specific information sources and -channels to affect different forestry practices as well as related tree species, -quantity, and -diversity differently.
OBJECTIVE
We aim to understand how information sources and -channels determine smallholders’ interactions with trees. We therefore want to (1) understand, which information sources and -channels jointly and distinctly determine smallholders (a) actively planting trees, (b) actively practicing farmer managed natural regeneration (FMNR), (c) actively cutting down trees, (d) having trees on their farmland and actively utilizing them, as well as (e) actively utilizing trees that grow off their farmland. Further we want to (2) investigate the correlation between those distinct forestry practices. We additionally aim to (3) understand different types of tree usage and (4) explore, if specific foresting practices relate to specific tree species, tree quantity and tree diversity and (5) what drives those outcomes within respective forestry practice.
METHODS
We collected household data of 606 smallholder farmers in the Senegalese Groundnut Basin. For our analysis, we employ a multivariate sample selection model based on Yen (2005) to analyze the determinants and correlation of smallholders practicing different forestry practices. The model further allows us to analyze tree quantity and tree diversity conditional on practicing respective forestry practices.
PRELIMINARY RESULTS
Our results indicate that trees are growing on 92% of the respondents' farms or homesteads. All smallholders that have trees on their farmland or homestead indicate to utilize those trees in various ways. Further 38% indicate to utilize trees that grow off their farmland and about 5% commercialize tree products. 26% actively planted trees and 21% actively practiced FMNR on their land in the past three years, while 15% have cut down trees on their land during this time. 85% of the smallholders that utilized trees, used them to produce food, 51% for firewood or carbon, 50% for medical purposes and 37% for fodder for livestock. The medicinal use of trees is mainly as fever remedy, antibiotics and to treat diarrhea. The multivariate probit regression in the first stage of the sample selection model shows that all different types of forestry practices correlate positively, indicating the high probability to jointly practice multiple forestry types. The multivariate probit regression further shows that smallholders that seek information via diverse channels and from diverse sources are more likely to engage in any forestry practice. We found phone calls to be the most important information channel for increased forestry activity, followed by radio and social media platforms. Interestingly, smallholders seeking information from their family members are less likely to indicate practicing FMNR, while they are more likely to engage in the other forestry practices. The most important sources of information to positively affect forestry activities are neighboring farmers and friends as well as farmers association. We surprisingly find a negative relation of NGOs and governmental organizations to all forestry types.
CONCLUSION
Our preliminary results highlight the need for future research and impact evaluation in the context of agroforestry to distinguish in more detail between different forestry practices. Future agroforestry policy and extension should target the versatile interactions of smallholder farmers and trees in the Sahel more specifically to achieve increases in tree quantity and -diversity as well as the uptake of specific tree species. Further phone calls, radio and social media platforms such as Whatsapp, YouTube and Tiktok should be integrated in communication strategies targeting specific forestry practices.
REFERENCES
Amare, Dagninet; Darr, Dietrich (2020): Agroforestry adoption as a systems concept: A review. In Forest Policy and Economics 120, p. 102299. DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2020.102299.
Arslan, Aslihan; Floress, Kristin; Lamanna, Christine; Lipper, Leslie; Rosenstock, Todd S. (2022): A meta-analysis of the adoption of agricultural technology in Sub-Saharan Africa. In PLOS Sustain Transform 1 (7), e0000018. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000018.
Cotillon, Suzanne; Tappan, Gray; Reij, Chris (2021): Land Use Change And Climate- Smart Agriculture In The Sahel. In Leonardo A. Villalón (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of the African Sahel: Oxford University Press.
Mbow, Cheikh; Halle, Mark; El Fadel, Rabih; Thiaw, Ibrahim (2021): Land resources opportunities for a growing prosperity in the Sahel. In Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 48, pp. 85–92. DOI: 10.1016/j.cosust.2020.11.005.
World Agroforestry (2024): What is Agroforestry. Available online at https://www.worldagroforestry.org/about/agroforestry.
Yen, Steven T. (2005): A Multivariate Sample-Selection Model. Estimating Cigarette and Alcohol Demands with Zero Observations. In American Journal of Agricultural Economics 87 (2), pp. 453–466. Available online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/3697857
Yobom, Oudah (2020): Climate change and variability: empirical evidence for countries and agroecological zones of the Sahel. In Climatic Change 159 (3), pp. 365–384. DOI: 10.1007/s10584-019-02606-3
