Climate Change Adaptation using Agroforestry Practices: A Case Study from Costa Rica

Conventional agricultural practices in tropical latitudes, using modern plant breeding techniques, fertilizers, and irrigation, have resulted in an increased grain yield (Huxley, 1999). However, these agricultural practices have also played a major role in increasing the global total area of marginal land that is now substandard for the long-term production of food and livestock (FAO, 1990), and has contributed significantly to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (IPCC, 2007). Such activities are most notable in developing countries which are strongly affected by climate change due to their lower capacity to adapt compared to developed nations (IPPC, 2007). Comparatively, developed nations have the infrastructure and financial capabilities to cope more effectively to a changing climate. As a result of the inherent environmental degradation and poverty associated with deforestation and conventional agriculture, there is a resurgence in the implementation of sustainable land-use practices including agroforestry (Kandji et al., 2006). In this paper agroforestry is defined as the deliberate integration of woody species with agricultural crops and/or pastures on the same land-unit resulting in the integration of economical and ecological interactions between components (Young, 2002). The cultivation of trees in combination with agricultural crops was a common practice dating back to the beginning of plant and animal domestication. Since then, several models of various agroforesry practices, from Asia, Africa and Europe to North and South America, have been developed (King, 1987). In tropical latitudes, farmers imitated vertical forest structure and diversity by planting a variety of crops with different growth habits. It was not unusual to plant up to 24 species on a plot one-tenth of a hectare with each layer corresponding to the natural stratification of a tropical forest (King, 1987). Until the 1860s, the focus of agroforestry practices was on tree production. It was not until 1975, when the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada concluded that priority in research should be given to combined agroforestry production systems in tropical regions in order to optimize land-use, establish food security, and address the increasing problem of environmental degradation (King, 1987). Since then, agroforestry practices were promoted as a sustainable land-use management system in developed and developing countries. For example, agroforestry practices range from low-input systems such as alley cropping and short-term improved fallow with leguminous shrubs to shade-grown coffee (Coffea arabica L.) in tropical regions and high-input cereal-legume systems and riparian plantings in temperate biomes (Nair, 1993; Gordon & Newman, 1997).

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