POLICY AND INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT FOR AGROFORESTRY - AN ANALYSIS OF 2 ECUADORIAN CASE-STUDIES

Institutional and policy issues are now recognized as high priority it ems in agroforestry research. However, such studies based on actual fi eld experiences seldom seem to have been undertaken. To help address t his deficiency, a study was undertaken in Ecuador to evaluate institut ional and policy impacts on agroforestry dissemination using two field projects as case studies. The projects were in contrasting ecological locations: the Amazonian lowlands (the Coca Agroforestry Project), an d the Andean highlands (the PROMUSTA project). The impact of policy an d institutional constraints (such as land tenure, research and extensi on support, marketing and pricing, and credit) on the implementation o f these projects was assessed based on interviews with farmers and pro ject officials as well as analyses of secondary data. The Coca project was found to be adversely impacted by the lack of extension, product marketing, and credit availability. The principal institutional constr aints for the Andean project included legal obstacles to farm-land pro curement, inadequate extension, little state-financial assistance, and limited affordable credit. The relevance of these issues was location specific: while access to land was not a serious constraint in the lo wlands, it was a major issue in the highlands. The study validates the premise that policy and institutional evaluations should become an es sential component of design and implementation of agroforestry project s. Although the components of a sound policy framework might be simila r in most developing-country situations, it may not be possible to evo lve universally applicable procedures for agroforestry-policy formulat ion because of the location-specificity of the promoted systems and th e institutional issues related to their adoption.