Agroforestry means growing trees on farms to improve livelihoods and to protect the environment. Even though farmers have used trees in crop and livestock farming systems for centuries, it is only over the last decades that this approach to land use gained more prominence. Worldwide increase of populations and the associated agricultural land use has led to the degradation of the natural resource base. The resulting deforestation is reaching alarming rates in many developing countries in the tropics.
Established in 1977, the World Agroforestry Centre, previously known as the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), has a global mandate to conduct strategic and applied agroforestry and integrated natural resources management research and development of appropriate agroforestry technologies for more sustainable and productive land use in partnership with national institutions. The Centre aims to improve human welfare by alleviating poverty, increasing cash income, especially among women and improving food and nutritional security. It aims to enhance environmental resilience by replenishing soil fertility, conserving the soil, enhancing biological diversity, sequestering carbon and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
The Centre’s collaborative research and development agenda is being conducted in 23 countries located in several eco-regions, representing diverse biophysical, socio-economic and environmental conditions in the tropics. The main eco-regions are: the sub-humid highlands of eastern and central Africa, the sub-humid plateau of southern Africa, the semi-arid Sahel, and the humid tropics of Latin America and southeast Asia.
As of 2003, the Centre’s work is organized under four cross-cutting themes: Land and People, Trees and Markets, Environmental Services and Advancing Institutions. Training and education activities are an integral part of the Centre’s strategy to strengthen national education, training, research and development institutions at the global and regional level and thus to empower them to fully exploit the potential of agroforestry as a sustainable and profitable land use approach.
The Centre and its collaborating partners are providing several training and education activities such as short training courses and workshops, the development of supporting training materials, strengthening formal education levels as well as the provision of individual training opportunities.