Differentiating the nature of agroforestry systems and agroforestry knowledge among farmers in southern Rwanda: Participatory and formal approaches as complementary methods

Farmer conceived and designed agroforestry systems (i.e., agriculturalsystems integrating trees with cropsand/or animals) were used as the object of this study in Southern Rwanda. As many equally valid agroforestry systems are possible, my aim was to discover and describe what the existing systems and technologies were and,more importantly, to determine how such systems and technologies came into being: the meanings people assign to them; how the knowledge upon which they are based was generated; how these systems and technologies, and their underlying knowledge, have changed over time under pressure of changing sociocultural, economic, political and environmental conditions. (author)