Potentials and Limitations of Plantation Crop Combination Agroforestry Practice in Southwest Ethiopia
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Abstract
Plantation crop combination agroforestry practice (PCCAP) is an agroforestry practicecontaining plantation crops (such as coffee, cocoa, tea, rubber, oil palm, spices, coconut, fruitcrops, etc.) and/or shade trees, fuel wood/fodder trees, or shade tolerant herbaceous crops as itsmain components. It is a very common agroforestry practice in humid and subhumid tropicalregions of the world including southwest (SW) Ethiopia. In SW Ethiopia, coffee agroforestry is adominant and an old PCCAP, and recently, the spice, tea and rubber agroforestry practices arestarted. However, the agroecology of SW Ethiopia is suitable for many other types of PCCAPsuch as cocoa, oil palm and coconut. Moreover, practically neither scientific research nor evensystematic data collection has been done on the agronomic management of this agroforestrypractice, except a few in coffee-shade trees, in the region so that there is lack of information. Thiswork, therefore, describes the different PCCAP and its agronomic potentials and limitations forthe high productivity of the components and the system as whole using personal experiences,available literatures in the region and elsewhere, with aim of forwarding future research anddevelopment directions to realize the full potential of this agoforestry practice in SW Ethiopia.