Tree planting in urban and peri-urban of Kinshasa: Survey of factors facilitating agroforestry adoption

• Published in: Urban forestry & urban greening 2018-03, Vol.30, p.12-23
• Main Authors: Etshekape, P. Gabriel, Atangana, A.R., Khasa, Damase P.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adoption facilitation; Farmers’ perceptions; Social acceptability; Urban agroforestry
• ISSN: 1618-8667; 1610-8167
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ufug.2017.12.015

Fast-growing cities in tropical countries are characterized by rapid and unplanned urbanization, food crop farming and gardening in urban and peri-urban areas, and woodfuel gathering in surrounding forested areas. While urban forestry and agriculture has drawn the attention of science, decision makers, and practitioners as a valuable strategic components of the cities and of their green infrastructure, little effort has been made to understand and facilitate the introduction of high value multipurpose trees into farmlands and garden plots within or on the fringe of cities, i.e. to develop tailored agroforestry practices. To fill this gap, an ex-ante analysis of factors influencing the adoption of agroforestry systems by farmers and gardeners of urban and peri-urban areas of Kinshasa was conducted. Up to 17% of households were sampled in five communities of farmers and 3 communities of gardeners in Kinshasa for interview and farm survey. Socio-cultural factors known to influence agroforestry adoption, including household characteristics, land tenure status, farm size, current agricultural practices, labor requirement, access to external support and farmers’ perception of current environmental issues were recorded. 86.4% of interviewed households were in favor of agroforestry. Provision of shade was perceived by farmers as the main function of trees on farmlands. 73.9% of respondents had planted or retained trees on their farms or gardens. Fruit production and shading were listed as top reasons for social acceptability of agroforestry. Lack of land ownership, high investment cost and long-term nature of the investment were perceived as main constraints to agroforestry adoption by 13.6% of respondents. Sequential tree-crop systems with spatial arrangement of fruit tree along farm or garden borders were identified as preferred agroforestry. The study identified farmers' education level and farm size as important factors that positively influence farmers' decision to adopt urban and peri-urban agroforestry.