EXPLORING THE RELATIVE ADVANTAGES OF LOCAL INNOVATION IN AGROFORESTRY

Highlights

● Promotion of local sustainable innovation developed by forest farmers.

● Focusing on bending of branches to increase coffee production in a pine-based agroforestry system.

● Using a combination of concepts of perceived characteristics of innovation.

● Techno-social, economic and ecological benefits are the key features.

● Local techniques may be prospective for developing sustainable agroforestry innovation.

Abstract

Adopting community-based innovations in agroforestry is key to enhancing livelihoods in forest farmer communities. This research aimed to explore the perceived advantages of the forest farmer technique of coffee branch bending to overcome the light limitations under the shade of a pine forest. The concepts of perceived characteristics of innovation were used to explore the advantages of this technique. Using a case study of an exclusive forest farmer clique in UB (University of Brawijaya) Forest in Indonesia, it was found that the local technique had high perceived relative advantages. Compared to the others, the bending technique increases coffee production and is easy to do. It was also found to be superior to reducing production costs and is perceived as more environmentally friendly, promoting it as a valuable sustainable practice. Technical experts need to validate it and may embrace it as a co-innovation for the available external agroforestry recommendations. Its adaptability to the local socio-ecological context and techno-economical constraints makes it a prospective innovation to be extended through social forestry programs.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

agroforestry / forest farmers / local innovation / relative advantage / social forestry

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the local forest farmers who willingly participated in discussions during this study, Catur Puranto and Aris Saryadin who kindly facilitated these discussion, and the reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript. This study was funded by the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Brwijaya, Indonesia.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Edi Dwi Cahyono, Eka Pradesti, Cahyo Prayogo, Suhartini, and Riyanti Isaskar declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2022. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)