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Reviving the rangelands: Silvopasture approaches for profitable land restoration
Author
Kumar, RV
Gautam, K
Ghosh, A
Singh, AK
Kumar, S
Roy, AK
Publisher
XII International Rangeland Congress
Publication Year
2025
Body

Rangelands cover more than half of the world's land area, providing vital support for around 500 million pastoralists and playing a key role in global livestock production and the livelihoods of pastoral communities. However, approximately half of these rangelands are degraded, negatively impacting both livestock production and pastoralist well-being. This underscores the urgent need for sustainable interventions to restore these ecosystems and improve global livestock production and pastoralist livelihoods. Transforming rangelands into more productive and climate-resilient systems, such as silvopasture (SPS) offer a promising solution. Research conducted by ICAR-IGFRI, Jhansi, India, in degraded semi-arid rangeland conditions of Bundelkhand converted to SPS via planting with native fodder trees, shrubs, and pasture species revealed significant findings. Under 12-years of evaluation, SPS was found to produce year-round fodder, with grasses yielding approximately 30 –40 Mg ha-1 yr-1 green fodder and forage legumes yielding 10 –12 Mg ha-1 yr-1 green fodder, supplying high-quality fodder from July to December. Trees produced 12 –15 kg/tree of green top feed, and shrubs yielded around 7 –8 kg/shrub of green top feed, ensuring supply of green fodder during lean months from December to June. These SPS systems were estimated to maintain 4 –5 ACU ha-1 yr-1 and in addition to it sequestered 14.35 to 30.68 Mg C ha-1 in above and below-ground biomass, equivalent to 52.66 to 112.60 Mg ha-1 of atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalent storage. Furthermore, the SPS accumulated 3 1 to 48 Mg C ha-1 in the soil layer up to 60 cm and released around 38.31 to 81.92 Mg ha-1 of oxygen under various trees, shrubs, and grass/legumes combinations. The eco-restoration efficiency of these SPS systems was also found to be approximately 10 times greater than that of fallow land and also boosted TOC by 2 –3 folds in soil over fallow land. The findings clearly demonstrate effectiveness of SPS as a climate-resilient approach for transforming degraded rangelands into profitable land use system ensuring diversified production and income generation to pastoral communities.

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Additional Information
This paper is part of the larger XII International Rangelands Congress Proceedings. Page Numbers: 2009-2011. Theme: Theme 7 / Local area intensification of rangelands
ISSN
978-0-646-72121-7
Conference Name
International Rangeland Congress
Collection
International Rangelands Congress
Keywords
Silvopasture
Rangeland Restoration
Alternate Land Use
Income Diversification