Agroforestry Strategy for Revitalizing Fodder Security in Kashmir Himalaya, India

Developing the knowledge base concerning the agroforestry’s contribution to fodder production that integrate livelihood security, relieve forest pressure and safeguard ecosystem services is pre-requisite for sustainable development. The study investigated the extraction and consumption pattern of fodder and extent of livestock dependency on natural forests to evolve silvipastoral agroforestry strategy for revitalizing fodder security in forest-fringe landscape of Ganderbal district, Kashmir. A total of 222 households were selected from 5 sample villages adopting multi-stage random sampling technique for field survey. Both secondary and primary sources were used for data collection. Household data were gathered administrating well-structured interview schedule and non-participant observations. Simple descriptive statistics were employed to analyse the data. Results revealed that total fodder extraction from various sources was 27,066.21 tons/year @12.19 tons/household/year and the forests were exposed to fodder pressure of 11,995.92 tons/year (44.31%) posing ample degradation. Focusing on the socioeconomic and ecological aspects, silvipastoral agroforestry strategy is designed, the implementation of which on cultivable wastelands would secure 11,847.73 tons/year of green fodder, tree fodder of 3846.67 tons/year, fuel wood of 307.73 tons/year, small timber of 320.43 m3/year, grass seed of 8.46 tons/year besides income of $ 66.13/household/year and employment of 9.98 man-days/household/year. Economic viability of the silvipastoral agroforestry strategy confirmed NPV of $ 734,192.67, BCR of 3.57 and IRR of 155.73% @12% annual discount rate on 12-year rotation. The strategy proposed needs to be implemented to mitigate the present unsustainable fodder extraction, safeguard the future fodder crisis, eliminate the fodder pressure on forests besides socioeconomic improvement.