Land Use Planning for Agroforestry Systems Management

Abstract

In India, the farmer in rainfed region has established land use planning merely in two thirds of the arable land (96 million ha) with multiple/mixed crops. The productivity and its stability on highly varying both spatially and temporally in rainfed agriculture. Current rainfed land use practices comprising monocropping, intercropping and to some extent mixed farming systems (with annuals, perennials and small/large ruminants) are no doubt supporting resource poor farmers by exploitation of natural resources but neither the productivity levels, viable incomes, year round employment or the sustenance of the ecosystem are usually not taken care adequately. In these complexities, a land use cannot provide a module, which is the need for a rainfed system. The final aim of rainfed land use planning is to build a model for individual farmer to sustain the farming system feeding his family, giving staggered and attractive income, improving the land quality and feed to the livestock apart returns from perennial trees like woody species. “ Land is a delineable area of the earth’s terrestrial surface, encompassing all attributes of the Biosphere immediately above or below this surface, including those of the Near Surface Climate, the SOIL and TERRAIN FORMS, the Surface Hydrology (including shallow lakes, rivers, marshes and swamps), the near surface Sedimentary layer and associated Ground Water reserve, the PLANT and ANIMAL populations, the Human Settlement pattern and physical results of PAST and PRESNT HUMAN ACTIVITY (terracing, water storage or drainage structures, roads, buildings, etc.). ” . Thus, a Natural Unit of Land has both: Vertical Aspect: from atmospheric climate down to ground water resources and Horizontal Aspect: an identifiable repetitive sequence of soil, terrain, hydrological, and vegetative or land use elements(FAO, 1993)