Inventory and composition of prevalent agroforestry systems across Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir

Agroforestry refers to sustainable land use system that combines arable crops with tree crops and /or livestock on the same land management unit, either spatially or temporally and is developing as a major land use activity in the country after agriculture and forestry. The objective of the present study was to assess the prevalent agroforestry systems of district Anantnag. Six agroforestry systems were found prevalent in the district by stratified random sampling procedure viz; Horti-agriculture, Boundary plantation, Home gardens, Horti-silvi-pasture, Horti-pastoral and Horti-silvi-agriculture system. The district was dominated by 59.8% (115) marginal followed by 28.64% (55) small, 8.85% (17) medium and 2.60% (5) large farmers. About 91.25 % farmers practicing agroforestry systems belong to marginal and small category and rest 8.75% fall in medium and large farmer category. Main preference was given to apple trees in case of horticultural trees and Poplar and Salix in case of forest trees. The pattern of cropping was paddy, maize, vegetables, and pulses in kharif season and mustard, oats and vegetables in rabi season.