Estimating carbon sequestration potential of existing agroforestry systems in India

Abstract

India launched National Agroforestry Policy on 10th February, 2014 which has the potential to substantially reduce poverty in rural India and revive wood based industry, besides integrating food production with environmental services. The policy is not only crucial to India’s ambitious goal of achieving 33 per cent forest and tree cover but also to mitigate GHG emissions from agriculture sector. Dynamic CO2FIXv3.1 model has been used to estimate the carbon sequestration potential (CSP) of existing agroforestry systems (AFS) for simulation period of 30 years in twenty six districts from ten selected states of India. The observed number of trees on farmers’ field in these districts varied from 1.81 to 204 per hectare with an average value of 19.44 trees per hectare. The biomass in the tree component varied from 0.58 to 48.50 Mg DM ha-1, whereas, the total biomass (tree and crop) ranged from 4.96 to 58.96 Mg DM ha-1. The soil organic carbon ranged from 4.28 to 24.13 Mg C ha-1. The average estimated carbon sequestration potential of the AFS, representing varying edaphoclimatic conditions, on farmers field at country level was 0.21 Mg C ha-1yr-1. At national level, existing AFS are estimated to mitigate 109.34 million tons CO2 annually, which may offsets one-third (33 %) of the total GHG emissions from agriculture sector.