Agroforestry for food security, environment protection pushed

DAUIS, Bohol, Philippines — Promoting agroforestry in enhancing greening and food security program is a must to achieve sustainable development in our country.

This was the gist of the First International Agroforestry Congress held from March 19 to 22 at the Bohol Plaza in this town by the Philippine Agroforestry Education and Research Network (PAFERN) with the UP-Los Baños Institute of Agroforestry (UPLB-IAF) and the Bohol Island State University (BISU).

PAFERN chair, Dr. Roberto Visco, told The Freeman that the Congress, bearing the theme "Agroforestry: Greening and Feeding the Nations," was aimed at addressing "cross-cutting issues of development that the world faces today."

Visco said these pressing concerns focused on environmental degradation, food insecurity, and global climate change. "PAFERN believes that sustainable development can only be achieved if we are able to address the environmental, economic and social dimensions of development," he said.

PAFERN, formed in 2000, is a group of  34 private and public universities and colleges to promote agroforestry in coordination with other entities such as non-government organizations, Visco said.

The Congress also shared recent and innovative agroforestry for ecological stability and address poverty, while ventilating issues and concerns confronting  agroforestry development, and mapping out roles, prospects and challenges in agroforestry towards the 21st century, he said.

Visco said an array of researches was tackled during the plenary as well as four studies on agroforestry's potential role that concerns Bohol province. — Ric V. Obedencio

Visco said promoting agro-forestry was not new in the annals of food security and environmental protection and conservation, citing as concrete examples the world-famous Rice Terraces of Banawe and other agro-forestry practices in other provinces.