Three decades of agroforestry research in India: Retrospection for way forward

India initiated an organized national research programme on agroforestry in the form of an All India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) on Agroforestry about three decades earlier. Diagnostic survey and appraisal under the project revealed that agroforestry practices abound in the country, but there are considerable variability in the nature and arrangement of the components and the ecological and socio-economic conditions under which such systems are practiced. Major practices include multifunctional improved fallows, home gardens, plantation crop-based mixed species production systems, alley cropping, woodlots, orchards, windbreaks, live fences, shifting cultivation and taungya. Germplasm of 184 tree species has been collected and evaluated and improved accessions of poplars, eucalypts, Dalbergia, neem, Acacia, Leucaena, Ailanthus, Pongamia, Casuarina and Mangium hybrids have been identified and being supplied to farmers. Other research themes include development of volume tables and growth equations for estimating tree productivity, development of location-specific agroforestry practices for different agro-climates and wastelands and economic analysis of these systems, extent of agroforestry area and carbon sequestration potential of agroforestry systems. The paper highlights the results of the systematic research under different thrust areas and also the way forward.