8 Evaluation of agroforestry potential in sloping areas

Being in the nature of a synthesis, this paper owes much to the work of the colleagues in ICRAF, to whom thanks are extended. In particular, I have drawn heavily on data gathered by the ICRAF agroforestry systems inventory, and would like to thank its Director, Dr. P.K.R. Nair, the regional coordinators and field collaborators, and Mr. E. Fernandes for his help in selecting appropriate examples and for discussion of meth-ods for agroforestry system description. Where the present paper departs in detail from terms used in the system inventory, the responsibility is my own. Eight examples of agroforestry systems in sloping areas are described with two exam-ples of economic analysis of agroforestry systems. The ICRAF diagnosis and design methodology is outlined, exemplified and compared with land evaluation procedures. Distinctive features in land evaluation for agroforestry are that surveys commence with a phase of diagnosis; that the performance of systems, and hence the land-use requirements, cannot be precisely specified at present; and that as a consequence, the output from agroforestry surveys is frequently a research programme. The ICRAF