PUTTING PARTICIPATORY DOMESTICATION INTO PRACTICE IN WEST AND CENTRAL AFRICA

Abstract

The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) has been working in the African Humid Tropics (AHT) since 1987. Despite its natural wealth, small-scale farmers of AHT are among the poorest people in the world and have relied on extractive harvesting of forest products and traditional shifting cultivation for their food and other needs. After years of severe deforestation, alternatives now have to be found as land pressure has increased and commodity prices of cash crops have declined. To overcome these problems, the Participatory Domestication of high-value indigenous fruit, nut and medicinal trees is seen as one way of empowering rural households to improve their own situation. Many products of indigenous trees have existing local and regional markets, with additional potential niches in international commerce. In Participatory Domestication, villagers are helped to develop local nurseries, taught skills of vegetative propagation, and assisted with the technical implementation of selecting superior trees for cultivar development, that meet specific market-oriented ‘ideotypes’. Farmers are enthusiastically adopting these techniques and are thereby improving their own livelihoods. The most successful community is expecting to make $US 10,000 in 2005 from the sale of improved cultivars from its nursery. The AHT tree domestication programme started in two villages in 1998, now 42 villages in two Provinces of Cameroon are active partners, and the programme has been extended to other countries. Currently, about 5000 farmers are practising participatory tree domestication techniques: 3500 in Cameroon, 1000 in Nigeria and 500 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The programme has also started in Equatorial Guinea and will soon be expanding to Ghana, Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone and Liberia. This paper describes the steps used to implement a participatory approach to tree domestication, and the lessons learnt. It also examines the perceived advantages and disadvantages of domestication, as well as the constraints and opportunities. The critical importance of local processing and value-adding for improved storage of products with short shelf-life is discussed as a means to ensure that the market for agroforestry tree products expands in parallel with the supply.