This guide is written for forest rangers and foresters, county forest board members and exaggerators extension workers. Each illustration introduces a set of principles and planning procedures on how exaggerators planning can proceed for the restoration of degraded sloping lands and for the incorporation of trees into agricultural landscapes. 1. 3 How to use this guide? This guide does not provide ready-made recipes, but offers advice on how to integrate trees and exaggerators practices into land restoration in general, and in sloping land management.
Its aim is to help extension workers and rammers formulate their own knowledge, innovations and practices for the specific conditions they face. The guide also takes stock of good practice and success stories from locally and aboard, as well as lessons learnt from failures. It is designed as an entry point primarily for field practitioners. In cases where exaggerators is completely absent in current field practices, it may be used to initiate a participatory planning process for the incorporation of trees in farms and sloping lands.
The purpose is to Help in sustainable economic development and environmental protection. Exaggerators is the combination of agriculture and forestry; rather than treating these as separate options for land use, it brings both together, recognizing and promoting tree use on farms. Exaggerators can be defined as: The integration of trees in farming systems and their management in rural landscapes to enhance productivity, profitability, diversity and ecosystem sustainability.
While the number of trees in natural forests is steadily declining, the number of trees on farmland is increasing. In many parts of the tropics, exaggerators is providing essential products and services that can help relieve he pressure on the natural forest domain. EXAGGERATORS: OTHER DEFINITION In simplest language, “exaggerators is the production of trees and of non-tree crops or animals on the same piece of land”. The crops can be grown together at the same time, can be grown in rotation, or can even be grown in separate plots when materials from one are used to benefit another.
However, this simple definition fails to take into account the integrated concepts associated with exaggerators that make this system Of land management possibly the most self-sustaining and ecologically sound of any agricultural system. Thus, a second definition of exaggerators would be, ‘the integration of trees, plants, and animals in conservative, long-term, productive systems”. Exaggerators can be considered more as an approach than as a single, finished technology.
Although several finished systems have been devised and tested, such technology may require adjustment for particular situations. The flexibility of the exaggerators approach is one of its advantages. WHY EXAGGERATORS? Exaggerators systems make maximum use of the land. Every part of the land is considered suitable for useful plants. Emphasis is placed on perennial, ultimate purpose crops that are planted once and yield benefits over a long period of time. Such benefits include construction materials, food for humans and animals, fuels, fibers, and shade.
Trees in exaggerators systems also have important uses such as holding the soil against erosion and improving soil fertility (by fixing nitrogen or bringing minerals from deep in the soil and depositing them by leaf-fall). Furthermore, well-designed systems of exaggerators maximize beneficial interactions of the crop plants while minimizing unfavorable interactions. The most common interaction is intention, which may be for light, water, or soil nutrients. Competition invariably reduces the growth and yield of any crop.
Yet competition occurs in monoculture as well, and this need not be more deleterious in exaggerators than monoculture systems. Interactions between components of an exaggerators system are Often complementary. In a system with trees and pasture, with foraging animals, the trees provide shade and/or forage while the animals provide manure. Thus, exaggerators systems limit the risks and increase sustainability of both small- and large-scale agriculture. Exaggerators yester may be thought of as principle parts of the farm system itself, which contains many other sub-systems that together define a way of life. . 5. 1 -or produce For farmers, well managed exaggerators systems on sloping lands provide food, fiber, fodder, fruit, construction materials, medicine, honey, dyes and resin/gum, among other products. They also provide cultural and household utility items, bush meat from hunting and trapping, and products for sharing and barter among community member. Planted trees can also improve soil fertility and therefore support the production of staple crops and enhance DOD security in this way. 1. 5. 2 To protect Sloping lands are vulnerable to a number Of risks and hazards.
Intense monsoon rain can trigger landslides and flash floods and lead to soil erosion. Trees on slopes can help to prevent these effects, replenish soils and provide other environmental services. For example, a combination of grass strips, shrubs and trees in contour hedgerows on slopes can significantly reduce soil erosion. In addition, droughts can significantly reduce agricultural production, but exaggerators trees can help redistribute water in soil to provide annual rope with greater water availability, and provide shade to prevent water loss.
