Socio-economic and Cultural Aspects for Community Participation in Afforestation and Agroforestry Programmes

The author argues that attempts to provide solutions to reduced forest based products and/or goods/services through afforestation and agroforestry strategies have always been disappointing to many governments and other agencies. The study was carried out in Teso districts from 1997 to 1998, was based on a sample of 170 farmers and 20 extension agent selected randomly and purposively respectively. The following socioeconomic factors were found to be bottlenecks to tree planting in the district, thus; poor land use practices, lack of capital, labor shortage, small farm sizes and insecure land tenure, competing resources uses, inadequate extension services, taboos and beliefs, high illiteracy levels, inadequate women participation. The study recommended that: private companies operating in area should employ qualified officers in forestry and agroforestry, change tree planting time to July- August, provide farmers with farm inputs such as tree seedlings, offer short-period training to their clients and promote growing of tree species that are termites resistant. At the national level, Agriculture and Forestry training institutions should design an integrated curriculum that cuts across the two fields. Also, concerned ministries should provide adequate resources to their extension workers and strengthen supervision procedures. Areas for further research in Teso District includes; tree species preference by the community, level of indigenous knowledge on trees and tree species compatibility with traditionally preferred crops.