Agroforestry in the Amazon basin: Practice, theory and limits of a promising land use

This paper explores the potentials for agroforestry in the Amazon Basin. Agroforestry systems are "sustainable land management systems that combine the production of crops including tree crops, forest plants and/or animals simultaneously or sequentially on the same unit of land, applying management practices that are compatible with the cultural practices of the local population." Agroforestry is a term that covers an enormous range of land uses at all scales of tenure and investment, ranging from subsistence to plantation farming, and from dozens of species to only two or three. Agroforestry usually involves multiple canopies, either in space or time, and more than one harvestable stratum. (author)