Agroforestry Systems for Arid Ecologies in India

The hot arid region is spread over 31.7 million hectare in India with major chunk located in the north western part (28.57 m ha) of the country. However, the maximum 61% area of the hot arid region is occupied by the western Rajasthan alone. Agriculture in the region is challenging task owing to low rainfall (100–400 mm yr−1) and high temperature (16 °C in winter and more than 34 °C in summer) and open pan evaporation (1800 mm yr−1) as well, which make the region dry with aridity index 0.05–0.65. Under such conditions, crop cultivation becomes difficult, crop production is highly variable and economic viability of the system is poor. Agroforestry in such conditions, particularly Prosopis cineraria-based traditional system, has become the way of life as the tree has acclimatized there since generations and provides food, fodder, fuelwood, fruit and timber to the human and livestock population. Since trees in agroforestry systems have a deep tap root system and livestock particularly small ruminants survive well on browsing materials. These attributes together make agroforestry sustainable and climate smart in the hot arid region particularly more in the era of global warming. Besides, the P. cineraria-based traditional agroforestry, now several systems of agroforestry, have been developed to cater the need of ever-increasing population both of human and livestock in the region.