In India, various factors such as competition for land due to intense population pressure, rapidly depleting fuel wood resources, time-scale for orchard operations, dispersed distribution of benefits from forestry and seasonal shortage of labour; the growing of trees did not find a suitable place in rural economy and rangeland development programmes in the. past. However, due to enormous pressure on non-renewable land resource, emphasis is now shifting towards agroforestry based land use system. Intercropping of agricultural crops with woody species is an age-old practice in traditional farming systems in the tropics. Growing of arable crops in association with trees is one of the viable sources to sustain the agricultural production and stabilize the rural economy in the arid and semiarid regions of our country.
