Complex cocoa agroforests can be successfully established on savannahs: A local innovation in the central region of Cameroon

Cocoa is a tropical crop usually grown after forest clearance in the humid tropics, hence leading to a conflicting role in terms of tropical deforestation. However, in the transitional zone between forest and savannah in the central part of Cameroon, farmers have started to plant cocoa and other associated useful trees on Imperata-based savannahs, successfully establishing sustainable cocoa agroforests after several years. In this study, evidence is shown that complex multistrata cocoa agroforests can be established on savannahs by small farmers, leading to the reconstitution of forest-like ecosystems. The spatial and temporal layout of fruit and forest tree species, which are combined with several generations of cocoa trees, is described and discussed with emphasis on the role of the species selected by growers to ensure a diversity of services, including successful weed and shade control of cocoa trees in their systems. Soil fertility, measured through soil organic matter content, is increased. The development of these multistrata cocoa agroforestry systems on savannah land is a significant innovation compared to the promoted scheme of cocoa development based on monocultures after forest clearance. It enables farmers to sustainably produce cocoa without fertilisers and any important financial investment. In the context of land scarcity in the central part of Cameroon, this innovative scheme offers farmers a better option in terms of risk management by providing them with regular and secure incomes which partly fulfil their different needs and ensure greater robustness on a farm level in an unstable social and economic environment. From an ecological viewpoint, this extends areas under forest-like ecosystems and restores fertility in degraded savannah lands. (Résumé d'auteur