It was in late 2002 that the idea of preparing a collection of multi-authored chapters on different aspects of ag- st forestry as a compendium for the 1 World Congress of Agroforestry, June 2004, was tossed around. With the approval of the idea by the Congress Organizing Committee, serious efforts to make it a reality got under way in early 2003. The rigorously peer-reviewed and edited manuscripts were submitted to the publisher in December 2003. Considering the many differentindividualsinvolved in the task as authors and manuscriptreviewers, we feel quite pleased that the task could be...

Agroforestry– the practice of growing trees and crops in interacting combinations – is recognized the world over as an integrated approach to sustainable land-use. Agroforestry systems, being multifunctional, facilitate not only the production of food and wood products but also provide a variety of ecosystem services such as climate-change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and soil quality improvement.Agroforestry research has made rapid strides since organized efforts started in the late 1970s. Today, a vast body of scientific knowledge and an impressive array of publications on...