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Fuelwood and fodder consumption patterns among agroforestry-practicing smallholder farmers of the lower Himalayas, India

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Abstract

Trees are important as a source of fuelwood and fodder for rural populations in the Himalayas. This paper analysed the fuelwood and fodder consumption patterns of rural households in 16 villages in Alaknanda Valley, Uttarakhand, northern India. The results showed that consumption of biomass from agroforestry and other sources varied significantly in different seasons. The fuelwood consumption requirement from agroforestry was an estimated 2.05, 0.63 and 1.24 kg/capita/day in winter, summer and rainy season, respectively, while the corresponding values for fuelwood from other sources were 1.16, 0.34 and 0.65 kg/capita/day, respectively. The fodder from agroforestry also contributed an estimated value of 12.96, 10.35 and 7.65 kg/adult cattle unit/day in winter, summer and the rainy season, respectively, while other sources contributed 3.53, 4.76 and 11.58 kg/ACU/day, respectively. These findings highlight the importance of agroforestry comprising suitable tree species for fuelwood and fodder in mountainous regions. Agroforestry can be a potential strategy to enhance resilience to climate change among smallholders who are fully dependent on natural resources, by reducing the risk of total crop yield losses, providing a more stable source of fuelwood and fodder, and reducing the time and energy spent on collecting resources from outside the smallholding or farm.

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Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to the anonymous reviewers and editor for their valuable comments on earlier drafts, which led for significant improvement in the manuscript. The authors are also grateful to the villagers of the study area who so willingly and forthrightly contributed information on issues pertaining to the study during the survey.

Funding

This research did not receive any grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. The author has got fellowship for the study from the UGC, Government of India.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, HNB Garhwal University, Srinagar-Garhwal, Uttarakhand, 246 174, India

    Bhuvnesh Nagar, Sushma Rawat & Munesh Kumar

  2. College of Horticulture and Forestry, Jhalrapatan, Rajasthan, 326023, India

    Bhuvnesh Nagar

  3. Division of Forest Statistics, ICFRE, Dehradun, Uttrakhand, 248 006, India

    Rajiv Pandey

  4. Environmental Science Center, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, Qatar

    Juha M. Alatalo

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  1. Bhuvnesh Nagar
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Contributions

BN, SR and RP has conceptualised the study. BN and SR carried out the field study and analysed the data. SR and BN completed the first draft of the manuscript. RP, MK and JMA read and revised the manuscript. Final draft of manuscript was read and approved by all the authors.

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Correspondence to Bhuvnesh Nagar.

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Nagar, B., Rawat, S., Pandey, R. et al. Fuelwood and fodder consumption patterns among agroforestry-practicing smallholder farmers of the lower Himalayas, India. Environ Dev Sustain 24, 5594–5613 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01673-w

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