Introduction

Till 1949-50, the land area in India was classified into five categories known as the five-fold land utilization classification.

These categories were:

Concept :

Agro forestry is an old concept. Trees crops and animals have traditionally been raised together on small farms throughtout the world. This concept first died in the temperate zone due to the demise of the small 'family farm' norm as trees, crops and animal became separately managed on a large scale in modern agriculture and forestry. In India also we recieved this legacy from the Britishers who exploited our natural resources and adopted this sectoral policy. At present our major land-use classification comprises cultivated land, forest land, pasture land and wasteland.Of a reported area of 306 million hectors in India (Of a total area of 329 million hectors), 67.4 million hectors are forest land,16.9 million hectors cultivatable waste land and 12.1 million hectors permanant pasture and other grazing lands. Most of the forest land is owned and managed by state forest department (SFDs). People have rights to these forest lands for grazing their animals and collecting fodder, fuel and timber as per prescribed rules and regulation. However, in all the land-use systems, the tree generally belongs to whomsoever owns the land.

Beginning in the 1960's India made massive investment in agriculture and achieved spectacular, success in food production, as did most of the developing countries which undertook sectoral monoculture. Many traditionally food deficit countries have become self-sufficient and even food-surplus countries. Despite such a satisfactory global situation, scientist and planner are worried. For them, increasing the pace of food production to keep pace with the unabated population growth in the topics and subtopic is still an unfinished task. Although most countries in the world are in the process of demographic tradition, progress towards the final stage of this tradition is lagging behind demographically in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Latin America, the Middle East and South-East Asia. It is predicted between 1995 and 2005 the world population will increase by one billion. Ninety percent of this growth will occur in the developing countries. This tremendous increase will require at least 60 percent greater agriculture output than in 1995.