STUDY ON THE PRESENT SITUATION OF HOMESTEAD AGROFORESTRY IN THE SELECTED THREE AEZs IN NORTRERN PART OF BANGLADESH

Abstract

Homestead agroforestry is a traditional system practiced all over the country. The study was carried out to evaluate the homestead agroforestry status, diversity and impacts on human life in selected three AEZs viz. AEZ-1 (Old piedmont plain, AEZ-3 (Tista meander flood plain) and AEZ-25 (Level barind track) of Dinajpur district. Atotal of 180 respondents were selected randomly from six unions from Dinajpur Sadar upazila (AEZ25), Parbatipur upazila (AEZ-3) and Birgong upazila (AEZ-1) of Dinajpur district. Data were collected from the sample during September to November 2017 by using an interview schedule. The relationships between the selected characteristics of independent variables namely, age, education, family size, farm size, homestead area and dependent variables namely annual income, annual income from homestead, organization participation, impacts of homestead agroforestry on human life, knowledge on tree, knowledge of homestead agroforestry, and ‘number of trees and vegetables in homestead area’. The overall results of the study revealed that the income of maximum number of respondents (30.00%) had medium, the maximum number of respondents (76.10%) had medium knowledge on homestead agroforestry, the maximum homestead had double layers agroforestry structure. The maximum number of respondents agreed that homestead agroforestry had positive impacts on human life. The mango was the most diverse species among different species planted by the respondents in their homestead area. The relative density (RD) and relative frequency (RF) were the highest for mango (25.15%, 15.63%) and the abundance and relative abundance were the highest in betel nut (17.53, 16.19%) while the lowest relative density, relative frequency and the relative abundance were for tentul (0.01%, 0.09%, 0.92%). Similarly, Important Value Index (IVI) was the highest in mango (48.33%) and the lowest in hartaki (1.02%). Among the vegetables, bottle gourd (Lagenaria scleraria) was the most dominent vegetable species (50%) followed by country bean (47.20%) and Indian spinach (36.70%) and the lowest was in pointed gourd (0.64%). The comparative results of the selected three AEZs revealed that the economic conditions were better in AEZ-1 than the other two AEZs, while the respondents of AEZ-25 had better knowledge on homestead agroforestry. Respondents of AEZ-3 had a well connection with resource personell like UAO, AEO, SAAO etc to get information about homestead agroforestry than the other two AEZs. In case of impacts of homestead agroforestry on human life, the maximum positive answers were obtained in AEZ-1. The maximum number of problems of homestead agroforestry were identified in AEZ-25. Among the problems, the most severe one was damage trees and vegetables by livestock. However, homestead agroforestry practices would be a viable water of socio-economic activities for a farmer in the northern part of Bangladesh.