Punjab is the richest state in the country in term of per capita income and has earned the name as food bowl of the country by putting 84-85 per cent of its geographical area under highly intensive, technical and mechanical agriculture with cropping intensity as high as 185 per cent and contributing more than one third of rice and half of its wheat production to the central pool of food reserve. The food grain production in the state has increased approximately twelve times in a span of about 50 years after independence from 20 lac tones in 1950-51 to 234.89 lakh tonnes in 2002-2003. Achieving this high productivity without caring for natural resources has resulted in a considerable loss in the inherent production potential and deterioration of soil health. As a result, man is getting serious warning signals in the form of lowering of water table, drought, high rate of environmental pollution, extremes of climatic parameters, etc. Agriculture in the state has become too intensive, wasteful and reckless and the radical changes are required to maintain the balance. Therefore, there is a strong thinking to diversify farming in the state to maintain the sustainability of the whole system. The state government is stressing hard to save the natural resources through the diversification in traditional crop rotation and adopt resource-conserving measures. With the introduction of fast growing multipurpose tree species in Punjab during sixties, agroforestry has been recognized as a sustainable system of high potential to boost the state's meager forest resources and to check the further degradation of natural resources. Highly productive block planting of poplar intercropped with wheat, sugarcane, turmeric, oats, berseem, mustard, medicinal plants, seasonal flowers, vegetables, etc. has become popular in irrigated tracts of the state. Boundary planting of eucalypts in the wheat- paddy cropping system and scattered trees of kikar, khair, shisham, dek, etc. on cultivated lands under rainfed conditions, especially in the sub-montane foot hill zone, play an important role in soil conservation and boosting the socio-economic status of the farmers. These tree species have inherent potential of increasing the productivity of problematic lands of the state. Therefore, the diversion of farmlands towards agroforestry will not only increase tree cover but also achieve the desired objective of National Forest Policy-1988 and conserve the precious natural resources like ground water, soil, biodiversity, etc. and prove to be a viable alternative sustainable land use system, which is renewable and eco-friendly as compared to sole agricultural crops in the years to come. The profitability of tree plantations on farmers' fields will further improve with the implementation of trading of carbon credits under Kyoto Protocol.
