Taungya Based Agro-forestry Trials in West Bengal

Agro-forestry in the form of Taungya is practiced in West Bengal since sixties of last century. With the changing situation, the practice once developed to raise the plantation economically in the forest areas has became one of the important tool for rural development. Some research works have beeD carried out to pvolve optimum spacing, crop combination, three tier cropping system, sequential cropping, mechanisation etc. An account of the same is given in the present paper. Presently large scale inter-cultivation is being carried out in forest areas to generate employment and production. In non-forest areas, where there is no tradition of agro-forestry people are being motivated to grow trees in their non-irrigated land in combination with intercrops.