Farmers’ Preferences for Conservation and Breeding Programs of Forestry Food Resources in Niger

Abstract

In a less-favored area such as the Sahel, promoting sustainable management, breeding, and conservation of forestry resources would result in improvements for agroforestry systems and food security. A contingent ranking exercise allowed us to estimate the preferences and the values given by the rural population to the attributes that would be comprised in a conservation program. The resulting preferred program is farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) based on the species Adansonia digitata (baobab), with plantation, stone bunds, or tassa, and selected or bred seeds. The proposed actions to improve the tree density and the seed quality were highly valued by the respondents. Nevertheless, no clear differences were found between tassa and stone bunds, or FMNR and plantation. The main effects of the program, according to the surveyed population, include an increase in crop production and soil conservation, and higher income from tree products. This study allowed us to identify the program that would provide the greatest well-being for farmers, since it would allow them to simultaneously improve both the production of their crops and the production of the woody food species. It was shown that farmers were particularly willing to contribute to a program based on baobab, mainly because its products are used for food in the home and can be sold in markets. In this sense, the yield and production of the system would be improved by increasing the number of baobab trees. Farmers would contribute to this production system and would be willing to invest sustainable effort in the long term. The conservation and breeding program can be directed at conserving and propagating the genetic resources of A. digitata in an initial phase, selecting trees with good production, growth, and adaptation characteristics.

The Future of Food: Domestication and Commercialization of Indigenous Food Crops in Africa over the Third Decade (2012–2021)

“…In Niger, farmers have chosen a baobab-based agroforestry programme that suits their livelihood needs for its potential to improve their household food security and income [74]. A study of seed germination to enhance the performance of seeds of A. digitata in Nigeria found that a soak in 98% sulphuric acid for an hour prior to sowing improved establishment [75].…”

“…To date, priority setting for the domestication of indigenous fruit trees in the region has been done mostly on three fronts: (i) climate change and habitat suitability, e.g., [124,160,400,413]; (ii) farmers' preferences and prioritisation (e.g., [74,118,129,211,285,286,405,406,414,415]); and (iii) combined literature review and prioritization schemes [416].…”

“…Prioritising tree species preferred by farmers is considered to be instrumental for the success of domestication programmes [417], since it empowers farmers to simultaneously improve the production of both their crops and woody multipurpose species, as for example with baobab in Niger [74]. In Sierra Leone, Heritiera utilis, Garcinia kola and Beilschmiedia mannii were highly appreciated by the local farmers through a rigorous national re-prioritisation process that employed a combination of focus-group data, field observations, a market survey and a ranking exercise [286].…”

Development of agroforestry food resources in Niger: Are farmers’ preferences context specific?

“…In the jargon of choice modelling, such effects are called attributes, and each attribute can have different values, which are called levels. Following previous results by Agúndez et al (2016 andAgúndez et al 2020), we selected the attributes and levels (Table 2), and conducted an experimental design of the programs to be evaluated by the farmers. We follow a contingent ranking approach, where each respondent started by selecting her best and worst choices, and then she was asked to identify her preferred choice between the remaining two alternatives.…”

“…Niger presents different agroecological zones [Sahelian, Sudanese-Sahelian and North Sudanese zones according to Yobom (2020)], with clear differences in the production of food resources, both agricultural and forestry (Moussa et al, 2016). Moreover, it turns out that farmers perceive climate change and want to act (Matchi et al, 2019), and they are willing to participate in improving the woody component of their traditional food production systems (Agúndez et al, 2020). Subsistence farming and livestock production are practiced according to traditional techniques.…”