Potential tree-crop combinations for conservation agriculture with trees (CAWT) in Vietnam

In Vietnam, evidence of environmental harm caused by conventional (intensive)
agriculture with the recent extension of monocropping has been reported (Curtis
2012; Wood et al. 2006). At the same time, agricultural production is required to
increase further. Conservation agriculture (CA) and agroforestry practices have
high potential to improve farm productivity and profitability. However, scaling up of
CA remains a major challenge for small-scale farmers, and agroforestry approaches
to maintaining soil fertility have met with limited success, especially where poverty
and hunger force farmers to use desperate, short-term survival strategies that take
precedence over longer-term sustainability.
CA and agroforestry have often been viewed as independent approaches.
Scientists at ICRAF are working on ‘conservation agriculture with trees’ (CAWT),
an approach that would add to a fourth principle to CA -that of tree-crop integrationand
meet the short-term needs of small-scale farmers for food and income, while
contributing towards sustainable resource management.