STUDY ON TREE-CROP-LIVESTOCK INTERACTION WITH ENVIRONMENT IN THE RURAL AREAS OF SIRAJGANJ

Abstract

Agroforestry is a land use management system in which trees or shrubs are grown around or among crops or pastureland. This intentional combination of agriculture and forestry has varied benefits, including increased biodiversity and reduced erosion. Livestock-based Agroforestry or mixed farming systems provide important opportunities for increasing food production from farm animals. The objectives of the study were characterization of livestock-based agroforestry systems in the rural area of Sirajganj district and to know the interaction among tree, crop, livestock with environment in the study area. The study was conducted in ten villages of two Upazilas of Sirajganj district in February to December 2017. A well-structured questionnaire was developed based on objectives for collecting information by purposive random sampling method of 50 respondents. Maximum people of the villages were farmers and agricultural production was their main occupation. There were different agroforestry systems found in the study area namely- Agri-silviculture (15), Silvopasture (10) and Agro-silvopasture (25) where different types of agroforestry practices were observed like mango based agroforestry (12), jackfruit based agroforestry (28) etc. The farmers practiced tree plantation and livestock rearing. To conserve the soil of land and to protect the soil from washed away, for getting different usable products farmers planted different tree species. Among fruit trees 84% farmers had mango tree, and among timber tree 96% respondents had Eucalyptus. There were different interaction among tree-crop-livestock and environment. By Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient it was observed that, there was a statistically significant relationship among tree-crop-livestock and environment and farm size that was 0.747, road side plantation that was 0.934 and production of the farmers that was 0.674 respectively. This study would therefore make use of the local knowledge of farmers to understand the tree-crop-livestock interactions on small holder farms and advice on which agroforestry practices best for sustainable agro-ecological intensification.