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Table 2 Classification of interventions to promote agroforestry, as presented in [15]

From: Evidence for the impacts of agroforestry on agricultural productivity, ecosystem services, and human well-being in high-income countries: a systematic map protocol

Intervention type

Description and examples

Farmer capacity development

Efforts focus on enhancing farmer knowledge and/or skills relevant to agroforestry practice, e.g., setting up and managing tree nurseries; tree planting and management techniques; and seed collection and propagation. Such interventions can involve the provision of training, extension and other advisory services, and specific technical information, as well as the setting up of demonstration sites, running of participatory trials and other modes of participatory action learning

Material support

Efforts to facilitate farmer access to quality and desired tree/shrub seedlings/seeds required to pursue prioritized agroforestry practices. Such interventions often entail the direct provision of seedlings/seeds to farmers but can also involve linking farmers to relevant suppliers and/or enhancing the ability of existing or new suppliers to supply participating farmers with quality and desired tree germplasm

Incentive provision

Interventions of this type seek to motivate farmers to plant trees and practice agroforestry through the provision of incentives. Examples include paying farmers for planting and caring for trees on their farms in exchange for desired ecosystem services (e.g. carbon sequestration) and buyers offering premiums to farmers for agricultural commodities produced under certain conditions (e.g., via certification schemes for products such as shade grown organic coffee)

Community-level campaigning and advocacy

Interventions of this type can also involve the provision of information about the benefits of trees and agroforestry and/or the provision tree seedlings/seeds, but this type is distinct from the first two types. The main objective is to motivate, including through social pressure, community members to plant trees on their farms and/or pursue specific agroforestry practices. Campaigning and advocacy may be done through radio and/or community meetings, speeches, and drama and may involve a mass community effort to plant trees, for example, on a specific day of the year

Market linkage facilitation

Interventions of this type focus on efforts to enhance potential returns from agroforestry to encourage adoption. This could be through linking producers to and/or brokering new and/or improving existing contractual arrangements with buyers. Other examples include the collective marketing of agroforestry products and/or interventions to stimulate demand for a given agroforestry product, e.g., pawpaw fruit

Institutional and policy change

Interventions of this type involve reforming and/or putting in place new polices, laws, regulations, and institutions more broadly to facilitate greater uptake of and benefits from agroforestry. Such efforts are designed to address existing policy and institutional constraints such as, for example, prevailing forestry regulations—designed for forest management areas—that may frustrate smallholder efforts to grow particular high-return tree species or insecure land tenure that may similarly deter long-term investments in tree planting