Keywords

1 Introduction

Himalaya forms the northern boundary of the India and is geographically vast ranging from Nanga Parbat in the west to Namcha Barwa in the east, having complex and diverse ecosystems (Rawat and Vishvakarma, 2011; Kumar et al., 2018a, b). Indian Himalayan region, covering about 12% of the geographical area of the country (ISFR, 2013), is inhabited by about 51 million people practicing hill agriculture in fragile and diverse ecosystems. Owing to richness in biological as well as socio-cultural diversity, the region has been identified as one of the 34 biological hotspots (Tiwari et al., 2017). Western Himalayan region, constituting 10% of Indian geographical area (ISFR, 2013), comprised of J&K and Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand is agro-biodiversity rich region with large number of species under cultivation (Singh, 2009). With variation in site factors such as altitude, slope, temperature, humidity, rainfall, edaphic factors and distance from snowline or plains, have led to the diversified farming landscapes. In Himalayan states of the country, indigenous agroforestry systems form an integral part of the communities and planting trees on farms helps farmers to satisfy their multifarious needs, which leads to an increase in tree cover and thereby reducing the burden on existing forests (Phondani et al., 2020). Further, agroforestry being an integrated farming system plays a key role in sustaining the fragile ecosystems of the region (Kaler et al., 2017) and investment risk of farmers’ because they diversify their crop and income source, which reduces economic and social risks (Lefroy, 2009). The knowledge of agroforestry has been continuously used as a way to tackle problems of rural livelihood in India traditionally. The area under agroforestry during next four decades is expected to increase to 53 million ha from 25.32 million ha presently; therefore, agroforestry land use will be having substantial contribution in meeting the societal requirements through increase in production and provision of environmental benefits as well (Dhyani et al., 2013). In India, agroforestry practices are mostly traditional and practiced in a variety of ways (Solanki, 1998; Sharma, 1996) subjected to multiple factors like demographic, socio-economic, cultural factors, as well as farmers’ experiences. Agroforestry systems in India have a lot of component diversification both structurally and functionally, which mainly depends upon the temperature, topography, elevation, aspect, edaphic properties and rainfall pattern (Combe, 1982; Nair and Dagar, 1991; Tiwari, 1995). Several agroforestry systems, their floristic diversity, biological productivity, carbon sequestration potential, amelioration of soil physico-chemical properties etc. in north-western Himalayan region have been delineated by Toky et al., 1989; Khosla and Toky (1996); Thakur et al. (2004). Various traditional agroforestry practices reported in the north-western Himalayan region are agrisilviculture, agrihorticulture, agrisilvihorticulture, agrihortisilviculture, hortisilviculture, silvopastoral, pastoralsilviculture, agrisilvopastoral, pastoralsilvihorticulture etc. with structural and functional composition varying in accordance with day-to-day needs and preferences of the farmers well suited with ecological conditions. This article gives an overview of the various agroforestry practices prevalent, their compositional variation, bio-economic productivity and carbon stock potential in north-western Indian Himalayan region.

2 Agroforestry Systems in the North-Western Himalayas

Agroforestry in tropical, sub-tropical and temperate region is being practiced traditionally (Kumar et al., 2018a, b). Agroforestry, incorporating tree, crop and livestock component, is a multidisciplinary land use system satisfying productive as well as protective objectives (Singh et al., 2015). In Indian Himalayan region also, agroforestry has been recognized as the productive land use; however, regional causes of adoption, factors causing changes in traditional practices and socio-economic development associated with agroforestry need to be studied thoroughly. Agroforestry helps in satisfying the diverse and multifarious needs of the humans along with providing economic benefits as well as environmental services in the form of carbon sequestration, watershed protection and climate change mitigation and adaptation. Tree-based systems affect local economy by economic stabilization, product diversification, food and fuel security, improvement of natural environment (Dar et al., 2018). With dramatic changes in the altitudinal ranges in the western Himalayan region, vegetation pattern also changes (Tewari et al., 2017) and so is the composition of the agroforestry systems. Over the years, farmers have accustomed several multipurpose tree species on their farmlands which have evolved into extant agroforestry practices. The traditional tree-based systems prevalent in the western Himalayan region are generally location specific regarding relevance, performance and adoption (Dar et al., 2018) and depends mainly on the topography, altitude, climate, edaphic factors etc. Traditionally prevalent as well as adopted agroforestry systems in any area provides much needed information for the extension and further improvement in the systems as it is time tested regarding its potential and possible constraints under specific conditions prevailing in the area. The major agroforestry systems in the Indian north western Himalayan region have been summarized in the Table 20.1. Major agroforestry systems practiced in the region comprised of agrisilviculture, agrisilvihorticulture, agrihorticulture, agrihortisilviculture, hortiagriculture, hortisilviculture, hortisilvopastoral, hortiagrisilviculture, silvopastoral, pastoralsilviculture, hortipastoral, agrisilvipastoral and silvihorticulture, as reported in literature. In J&K, important tree species are Populus spp., Salix spp., Ulmus wallichiana, Ailanthus altissima, Morus alba, Aesculus indica etc. while, in Ladakh region Populus spp., Ulmus wallichiana, Salix spp., Juniperus spp. are major tree species. In Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, most of the tree species prevalent are similar such as Grewia spp., Celtis australis, Quercus leucotrichophora, Toona ciliata, Cedrus deodara, Morus spp., Melia spp. etc. Being in hilly terrain, local people depend on the forests for several day-to-day needs. Mountain farming systems are generally characterized by presence of livestock component which provide milk, meat, manure and draught power (Nautiyal et al., 2018) in the areas where farm mechanization is having limited scopes. The basic requirement for livestock rearing is fodder availability which is generally fulfilled from fodder grown in community land, forest land and crop residues. India is having about 11% of the world livestock population that is supported on the land area constituting about 2% globally (Roy et al., 2019) creating challenges for fulfilment of the fodder requirement. The issues of fodder availability need to be addressed as feed constitutes about 70% cost of milk production alone, which, in turn is responsible for the 20–60% lower productivity of livestock in Indian conditions. According to report (ICAR-IGFRI, 2021) there is 49.17% shortage of fodder in Jammu and Kashmir, 40–45% in Ladakh (Tewari et al., 2016) and about 33% in Himachal Pradesh (NITI Aayog, 2018). Through adoption of alternate land use systems such as silvopastoral, hortipasture etc. it is possible to increase the productivity of the land along with fulfilment of the fodder requirement, reduction of grazing pressure as well as positive environmental implications (Roy et al., 2019). Further, with wide altitudinal variations in the Himalaya region, the climatic conditions also vary significantly with some regions being covered under snow during winters. Under such conditions, fuelwood serves as an important source of energy for which people mostly depend on the forest resources (Kumar et al., 2020). Studies reported that 93% of the population in Himachal Pradesh uses fuelwood as the source of energy (Parikh, 2011; TERI, 2015) out of which 94% of the fuelwood users depends on the forests for this. Fuelwood consumption per capita per day (in kg) in Jammu and Kashmir varies from 0.05–5.50, in Himachal Pradesh varies from 0.91–5.13 kg, while, in Uttarakhand varies from 1.13–8.75 (Kumar et al., 2020) showing the dependence of the inhabitants on the fuelwood. Govt. initiatives such as Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana are helpful in meeting the objectives of the clean energy and simultaneously integrated farming practices are also having key role in meeting the demand of fuelwood to certain extent and also to reduce the pressure as well as exploitive utilization of the natural resources. The annual availability of the fuelwood (in million tones) from the tree outside forests (TOF) in J & K including Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand is 0.365, 0.290 and 0.297 respectively, in comparison to 0.02 million tones, 50 tones and 0.05 million tones fuelwood available from forests in the respective UTs/ states (Dar and Ahmad 2016). Further, availability of the fuelwood on the farmland will also facilitate the utilization of the cow dung as organic manure in the farm instead of burning it as energy source. In addition to the fodder and fuelwood requirement farmers are also dependent on the natural resources for their timber and small wood needs which generally results into exploitation of the resources when the need turns into greed. Agroforestry not only provides ecological services but also economic benefits as 65% of the timber requirement in the country is met from TOF (GoI, 2016). In the current scenario when there are lack of data for demand as well as supply of tree-based products and natural forests are closed for the protection and conservation purpose, there is greater scope for the promotion of the agroforestry practices (Parthiban et al., 2021). Further, a dedicated agroforestry policy facilitating the selection of suitable species for the specific region, provision of providing quality planting material, permissive felling and transit regulations as well as marketing facilities may encourage the mass towards adoption of scientific agroforestry interventions.

Table 20.1 Composition of prevalent agroforestry systems in north-western Himalayan region
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3 Biomass Production of Agroforestry Systems

Photosynthesis is the process involved in the manufacturing of the food by the primary producers through transformation of the light energy in chemical energy and the product formed is either used or is stored. The energy is stored in the plants in the form of biomass and is having great importance to other individuals present on other tropic levels as well as humans as the stored energy can be harvested to be used as food, fuel, fibre and several other uses (Roberts et al., 1985). Plant biomass is the weight of the biological material contained in aboveground and belowground portion of plant and is generally expressed as plant dry matter dried to constant weight. Biomass served as the primary source of the fuel anciently since humanity became familiar with fire (Fekete, 2013). In the current scenario, fossil fuels have become common source of energy but still biomass energy is an important and preferable source of energy for the poor people that may due to its cheapness and easy availability from the forest area. Global concern towards the woody biomass is increasing due to increased fossil fuel prices, emissions resulting from burning of fossil fuels as well as threat resulting from catastrophic wildfires (Proto et al., 2014). Agroforestry practices having deliberate incorporation of the woody perennials into the land use therefore has immense potential for the production as well as storage of biomass. Biomass production of trees in agroforestry is generally estimated on the basis of region specific allometric equations developed for specific tree species. Biomass production of agroforestry systems depends on several factors such as physiography, structural and functional composition, age and density of trees, specific management practices, environmental, socio-economic, interaction of components affecting efficiency of resource use etc. (Goswami et al., 2014; Rajput et al., 2017; Chisanga et al., 2018; Singh et al., 2020; Panwar et al., 2022). The biological production potential of the prevalent agroforestry practices in the north western Himalayas based on literature review has been summarized in Table 20.2. A lot of work regarding the biomass production potential of the agroforestry systems has been carried out in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, while in union territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, work has been carried out regarding the identification of the agroforestry, which needs to be further elaborated to assess the productivity of the prevalent systems. From Table 20.2, it can be seen that the total biomass production potential of agrisilviculture is highest (202.59 Mg/ha) among prevalent systems in Jammu and Kashmir. Also, lowest total biomass production (15.94 Mg/ha) is also reported in agrisilviculture system in the region. The preponderance of fast growing tree species such as Populus spp., Salix spp., Robinia pseudoacacia etc. may be the reason for more accumulation of the biomass as contributed by perennial component, while varying tree densities retained as per farming practices may affect the overall productivity of the system. Aboveground and belowground biomass is also more in agrisilviculture system with overall range varying between 6.70–159.41 Mg/ha and 1.58–71.55 Mg/ha, respectively. In Ladakh, hortisilvopastoral resulted in maximum aboveground, belowground and total biomass viz., 19.95 Mg/ha, 10.93 Mg/ha and 30.88 Mg/ha, respectively attributed to the diverse components, more tree density and specific practices adopted for the management of the system. In Himachal Pradesh, aboveground biomass is reported maximum under silvopastoral system (162.80 Mg/ha), while belowground biomass (71.55 Mg/ha) under agrisilviculture. Dominance of forest trees in silvopastoral system may be the factor for the higher aboveground biomass as contributed through tree component, however, management practices in agrisilviculture system as well as withdrawal of nutrition by components from different zones in the soil may have resulted in better belowground biomass in agrisilviculture system. In total biomass production is highest (202.59 Mg/ha) in agrisilviculture that may be due to higher tree density as well as differences in management practices. In Uttarakhand also, agrisilviculture system is reported most productive among all the systems with aboveground biomass production potential to a tune of 159.41 Mg/ha, belowground production potential of 71.55 Mg/ha with total biomass production to the tune of 202.59 Mg/ha. Tree density along with the type of species incorporated plays significant role in influencing the productivity of the system.

Table 20.2 Biomass production potential of agroforestry systems in north-western Himalayan region
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4 Carbon Stock Potential of Agroforestry Land Uses

Currently, climate change is among one of the most important topic of discussion world over that bring up unique challenges directly or indirectly. Concentration of the GHGs (greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere shows the equilibrium between the source (natural and anthropogenic activities) and sink (biosphere and ocean). The concentration of CO2 in earth’s atmosphere is 413.20 ± 0.2 ppm, methane 1889 ± 2 ppb and nitrous oxide 333.20 ± 0.1 ppb that is 149%, 262% and 123% above the pre-industrial level, respectively, and considered main cause behind this global warming (WMO, 2021). It is believed that through alternate cultivation practices of the agricultural and forest crops this increase in the concentration of the CO2 can be checked and can be partially mitigated through biomass production (Jose and Bardhan, 2012). International concern about the changing climatic conditions resulted in the Kyoto protocol in 1997 and ever since this protocol, agroforestry has been highlighted as a sustainable strategy for the mitigation of the increasing concentration of CO2 throughout the world. Agroforestry being the deliberate incorporation of woody perennial on the farmland helps in storage of higher amount of biomass carbon through carbon sequestration as compared to monocropping and thus plays an important role in mitigation as well as adaptation of climate change. In addition to the carbon stored in the form of biomass aboveground, agroforestry also helps in the storage of considerable amount of carbon belowground. However, for the adoption of agroforestry in the carbon sequestration, projects under the schemes such as clean development mechanism exact information of the carbon stored aboveground, belowground and in soil are needed. Carbon stock potential of the agroforestry practices in the north western Himalayan region has been collected from literature of the area and highlighted through Table 20.3. In J&K, highest (71.78 Mg C/ha) vegetation carbon stock is reported under agrisilviculture having the carbon range 32.61–71.78 Mg C/ha, while soil carbon stock range is reported equal to 25.99–58.07 Mg C/ha. Range of carbon stored is more for vegetation in agrisilviculture and agrihorticulture land use systems, while silvopastoral system has more carbon stored in soil as that of vegetation which may be due to more litter addition along with root decay material in the soil as contributed by fine roots of the grasses (Goswami et al., 2014). In Ladakh region, maximum vegetation carbon (44.59 Mg C/ha) is reported to have stored under silvopastoral system that may be due to more tree density, while, soil carbon is reported to have stored more (64.34 Mg C/ha) under agrihorticulture system that may be due to management practices adopted for agriculture as well as horticulture components as both the components hold economic values. In Himachal Pradesh, maximum total carbon (109.93 Mg C/ha) is reported to have stored under silvopastoral land use ascribed to continuous carbon accumulation by the perennial component which is present in more number under silvopastoral system and is the major cause for the higher vegetation carbon (71.61 Mg C/ha) stored in silvopastoral land use system. Agrisilvihorticulture system is reported to have stored maximum soil carbon (56.70 Mg C/ha) which is quite identical to the soil carbon stored under agrihorticulture, agrihortisilviculture, silvopastoral and agrisilviculture system. Diverse composition of the land use system may be responsible for the more soil carbon as facilitated by the more addition of litter as well as better decomposition. In Uttarakhand also, silvopastoral system was reported to have stored more vegetation carbon to a tune of 51.14 Mg C/ha, while soil carbon was more (64.34 Mg C/ha) in agrihorticulture system. Overall, maximum carbon storage (79.92 Mg C/ha) is found under agrihorticulture system attributed to more biomass stored by the fruit tree component as compare to sole cropping. The biomass production is subjected to the composition of the system as affected by the factors of the locality (Yadav et al., 2017; Adhikari et al. 2019).

Table 20.3 Carbon storage (vegetation + soil) in agroforestry systems of north-western Himalayas
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5 Socio-Economic Impact of Agroforestry Systems

The combined measure of the social and economic position with respect to others in the society represents the socio-economic condition of the society. It is having general influence on the resource accessibility, societal livelihood pattern, food security etc. (Roy et al., 2013) and greatly influences the farm-based enterprises by affecting the organization, management, production and marketing of the enterprise. The understanding of socio-economic factors holds great importance in farming systems and helps in formulating the policies for the well-being of the society as ignorance of socio-economic aspects results in the suffering of the various developmental programs (Sood et al., 2008). Agroforestry and socio-economic considerations act as two phases of the same coin as improved socio-economy affects the integration of trees on the farm land on one hand, while, adoption of the agroforestry helps in improvement of the socio-economy of the farming families. Agroforestry is having vast potential for the improvement of the society as can be realized through its benefits to the vulnerable sections mainly marginal and small farmers, women and children (Murthy et al., 2016). Throughout the country various studies confirm the positive impact of the agroforestry land use on farmer socio-economic in terms of women welfare, upliftment of the marginal sections, food security, improved financial resilience, reduced crop failure, regular employment and income, increased land productivity, annual and periodic economic benefits from multiple outputs. Generation of more than 5.76 million mandays per year from agroforestry if implemented on an area of 75,500 ha in Indian Himalayan region shows the employment potential of this sustainable land use in the region and as an option for rural development in the challenging terrains of the Himalayas (Arunachalam et al., 2020). Agroforestry in the Himalayan region plays an important role owing to the topographical factors which on interacting with different socio-economic parameters get modified in various location-specific systems. Although much of the research has been carried out on the identification, productivity, carbon sequestration potential, yet there is dearth of research work highlighting the impact of adoption these systems on the socio-economic condition of the farmers. This poses constraint in framing the suitable policies for the betterment of the farming community but on the other hand offers a scope that can be addressed in the future research projects.

6 Challenges Associated with Farming Communities in North-Western Himalayas

India has become the most populous country surpassing China, and agriculture is the important sector providing employment to about half of the population; however, the share of agriculture towards GDP has declined since independence to about 17.8% (Sharma and Raina, 2021). Western Himalayan region is generally characterized by the variations in topography, edaphic factors, climate and land use practices. Being hilly and mountainous terrain, the ecosystems in the north western Himalayan region are fragile with respect to topography, geological hazards, land degradation, land use and land cover, biodiversity etc. (Saha and Kumar, 2019). Several anthropogenic activities including deforestation, indiscriminate and over utilization of resources, faulty agricultural practices etc. along with challenging and unstable terrain has resulted in soil erosion, depletion of land resources, lower productivity etc. Keeping in mind the vulnerability of the bio-physical characteristics of Himalayan region necessary actions are required in order to maintain the sustainability of the ecosystem. Sustainable land use practices as well as their management can help in acting as sink to the carbon along with providing livelihood opportunities to the rural population and help in reducing the vulnerability of the natural resources towards changing climatic conditions. Agroforestry can help in the stabilization of the fragile landscapes through the addition of litter, binding of soil by extensive root network thereby preventing the soil erosion, provision of multiple products improving the socio-economic conditions, preventing the pressure on natural resources such as forests, pastures etc. Although agroforestry seems the most suitable land use facilitating the fulfilment of the needs in a conservative way but the limited land resource seems hindering its true potential. The average land holding size in the western Himalayan region has declined for all the categories and has come down to about 1 ha on an average. The condition is even worse by the continuous fragmentation of this limited asset making farming non-viable from food as well as income point of view. Land fragmentation is one of the major causes for the reduced agricultural productivity in the Himalayan region (Shukla et al., 2018). As hill farming is mainly done manually and is dependent on draught animal, the land fragmentation leads to increase of input costs involved in agriculture thus turning the asset into liability. Farmers having limited land area have less scope of incorporating trees on the farmland as over agricultural component. But, diversified farming can help getting better benefits along with natural security towards total crop failure. In addition to the fragility of the ecosystems in the north western Himalayas, presence of cold desert region also make the region susceptible to vagaries of climate and livelihood more difficult. Cold desert in the western Himalayas exists in Leh and Kargil districts of Ladakh, Lahul & Spiti as well as some pockets of Chamba district and some areas in Janvi valley of Uttarkashi district (Tewari and Kapoor, 2013). Herbaceous plants of annual and perennial nature along with few bushes dominate the vegetation of the cold desert region which is generally xerophytic or mesophytic in nature. The area under cultivation in the cold desert region is very less which is generally flatter portion of valleys, but, with increase in population people are cultivating sloppy area also which has resulted in ecosystem degradation. Integrated land use as well as management techniques are necessary for the ecological restoration of the area which includes management of pastures, plantations, livestock component in harmonic association. Agroforestry seems the answer to all the problems concerned which along with the fulfilment of the basic need of the agricultural crop helps in the provision of the fodder, fuelwood, fruit, fibre, timber etc.

7 Future Perspective

  • Strengthening of the research and extension activities towards the land use systems having better potential from ecological as well as economical point of view such as horticulture-based and pasture-based systems.

  • Development of the fodder tree-based systems for checking the fodder scarcity, enhancing carbon stock potential of the land use and facilitating the rearing of the livestock.

  • Holistic approach towards the estimation of biological productivity and carbon sequestration potential of location specific agroforestry systems so that degraded and wastelands can be reclaimed with the system having high production potentials.

  • Tree breeding techniques for the exploitation of the quality planting material for mass propagation, distribution of planting material to the farmers and the socioeconomic development of the society.

  • Tree-based farming systems should be popularized among farmers residing in fragile areas based on suitable models developed and tested regarding their feasibility in terms of checking natural hazards as well as act as a source of livelihood.

  • As choice of tree components for incorporation in farming systems is limited in cold desert region and generally includes Salix spp. and Populus spp. So, research needs to be focused on the genetic improvement of the species and development of superior clones having better productivity and adoptability by the people.