Assessment of the Environmental and Socio-Economic Impact of Agrisilvicultural System

Agrisilviculture is a land use system that involves the integration of trees and other large woody perennials into farming systems through the conservation of existing trees. This study assesses the environmental and socio-economic impacts of agrisilviculture in Kware Local Government Area of Sokoto State. A total of one hundred and five questionnaires were administered to farmers to gather information in the prospects and constraints of agrisilvicultural practice. A snowball method was used to select respondents from the study population. Three (3) villages were purposively selected from each of the five (5) districts, and seven (7) farmers were selected from each villages. The results indicated that 94.3% of the farmers interviewed i.e. 99 were males while 6 (5.7%) were females. 70.4% of the respondents were married, 28.6% were single, 1.0% were widows, and there were no divorcee. The study also revealed that farmers adopt agrisilvicultural practice for various reasons which include: - (food security, shade/shelter, fruits, fuelwood, soil erosion control, fertility etc.) 62.9% of the respondents said they encountered problem on technical knowledge on sustainable practice. The implication of the findings is that agrisilviculture enhances ecological stability, production sustainability and present huge opportunities for raising food production and developing forestry practice in the semi-arid tropics. It was recommended that government should help and provide sufficient soft loans to farmers within the practice of agrisilviculture as a means of encouraging them and cushioning the effect of long gestation of tree crop. Technical assistance is needed to facilitate the spread of agrisilvicultural practice