Information about TNAU

- NAIP – A Value Chain on Industrial Agroforestry in Tamil Nadu

The Forest College and Research Institute (FC&RI) is located at Mettupalayam in the sylvan surroundings of Jakanarai Reserved Forest, about 40 km north of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) main campus, Coimbatore. It is situated over a sprawling expanses of 200 ha of reserved forest at the foothills of Nilgiris on the Kotagiri road. The college is perched at an altitude of 300 m with a longitude of 11^o19' N, latitude of 77^o56' E and enjoys an annual rainfall of 830 mm. The mean maximum and minimum temperature are 32.2^o C and 23.2^o C respectively. This Institute has been awarded with National Agriculture Innovation Project by ICAR on a value chain on Industrial Agro forestry in Tamilnadu through a consortium approach involving research organizations,farmers,industries, financial institutionals and others.

The biological diversity of forests and their ecological functions are the heritage of mankind. The forests of India are shrinking under acute socio economic pressure and developmental process. Currently, forest area in the country is around 23.55% and in the state of Tamil Nadu it is around 17.5% which is low against the mandated requirement of 33%. Not only the forest wealth of the country is poor but also its productivity in terms of mean annual increment (MAI) is also one of the lowest. The MAI of Indian Forest is less than 1m³ha^-1yr^-1 compared to the global average of over 2.1 m³ha^-1yr^-1.The low forest cover coupled with poor productivity has ushered in a total mismatch between demand and supply  of both domestic and industrial wood besides creating environmental de-stability and disequilibrium.

The National Forest Policy of 1988 has resolved to phase out the supply of raw material to wood based industries and ultimately totally stopped the raw material supply from the forest. The policy also indicated that wood based industries have to become self reliance in meeting the raw material demand by establishing direct linkages with the farmers by providing lending facilitates and other input needs. This is going to pave the way for a strong industry-farmer nexus, with many farmers attracted towards tree husbandry due to assured marketability and income. As the activity gets intensified, location specific problems warranting solution are also found to be in the ascendancy. Many plantation activities suffer due to non availability of potential varieties suitable to varied edapho-climatic conditions. All these underpins, a strong institute and industrial linkages to develop superior genotypes suitable for various agroclimatic zones coupled with intensive silvicultural management for productivity improvement thereby helping to improve the farm net income. Against this back drop, the current project is designed to establish institutional mechanism to promote Industrial Agro forestry in association with all levels of stake holders and to intiate value chain mangament process in forestry. More Details vist http://www.fcrinaip.org/index.php