Production and access to quality planting material (QPM) are vital criteria for ensuring the success of plantations as well as for upscaling agroforestry. This has been reiterated numerous times and steps has been taken to bring in guidelines for ensuring QPM at all level of planting.Non-availability of quality planting material (QPM) of woody perennial species has been a major constraint in the plantation forestry including Agroforestry in India since its inception.The section 2 of the National Agroforestry Policy mentions ‘agroforestry has not gained the desired importance as a resource development tool due to various factors includingthe dearth of quality planting materials and the policy also underlines the need for an ‘Institutional mechanism for registration of nurseries and their accreditation should be established’.ICAR-CAFRI for been designated as Nodal agency by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare for Agroforestry and support the implementation of Agroforestry component of RKVY. To enable this, the ICAR-CAFRI has brought out this accreditation protocol for agroforestry nurseries. This protocol is based onthe fundamental aspects of any nursery which remains the same irrespective of size, nature and choice of propagation material used. This protocol envisages that accredited nurseries will follow certain criteria which can be eventually assessed to have the foundational establishment of QPM.
ICAR-CAFRI ,A National Nodal Agency for Agroforestry