Socio-economic analysis of an agroforestry system with the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska

The results from an economic analysis of an agroforestry system and a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) for community land-use decision-making with the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska are presented as a series of three papers. The dissertation will emphasize different parts of the study with an overall focus on the community development aspects of the agroforestry system. Chapter 1 emphasizes the use of PRA to obtain an emic or insiders perspective on the land-use needs of the Winnebago Tribe and community. As a rapid, low-cost method of data collection, PRA techniques have been used as a means of incorporating indigenous knowledge (IK) systems. The Winnebago PRA emphasizes the techniques that were found to be most effective to gather land-use information while illustrating the importance of recognizing IK systems;Chapter 2 emphasizes the incorporation of socio-cultural and environmental factors with an economic analysis of the agroforestry demonstration through the use of decision matrices. An existing agroforestry system is compared with two alternatives: a corn-soybean rotation and renting of the land. Values for selected economic, socio-cultural, environmental, and risk decision criteria for each land-use system are standardized through the use of a Z-statistic. Four weighting schemes are used to compare within and between systems of land-use. Heavy emphasis on socio-cultural and environmental decision criteria indicated best land-use would be an agroforestry system. Rather than focusing on the specific data, this paper provides a general model for evaluating agroforestry systems on a holistic level;Chapter 3 emphasizes putting the PRA and economic analysis together for the evaluation of the agroforestry project to meet the needs of the Winnebago Tribe and Winnebago community within the context of the community\u27s competing needs for land use. Results of the PRA and economic analysis are compared against objectives for the agroforestry system and overall land-use goals for the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska