Breadfruit Agroforestry – Overcoming Barriers to Adoption

Research Objective 1: Quantifying benefits and costs of ‘ulu agroforestry 

Three aspects related of agroforestry economics will be conducted: (1) interviews on the benefits and costs of adopting and maintaining agroforestry systems to build quantitative and qualitative case-studies of agroforestry economics, (2) continued monitoring of a demonstration agroforestry installation to conduct a complete cost and revenue budget for four subsections of breadfruit agroforestry layouts, and (3) work with Propagate Group to refine their parameters and assumptions that drive the tropical version of the Overyield model, an economic forecast tool for agroforestry (https://www.overyield.com). 

The first will be to conduct detailed case studies with ‘ulu farmers (~10) who have implemented agroforestry practices. This is meant to directly build upon the HUPC’s ‘Ulu Agroforestry Guide by providing a much more detailed quantitative and qualitative assessment of the costs and benefits associated with different practices and farming models. This detailed dive into parameterization is used to address farmers’ needs concerning practical adoption of how to do it, what does it take, and if it is viable. 

The first year of the SARE project will focus on collecting data from existing breadfruit agroforestry practitioners. We previously contributed to ‘Ulu Agroforestry in Hawai‘i: Farmer Profiles and Production Considerations1. This guide provided real-world case studies of breadfruit agroforestry, broadly documenting the general pros and cons of their systems, and highlighting all five agroforestry practices defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA): alley cropping, forest farming/multi-story cropping, riparian forest buffers, silvopasture, and windbreaks. This product was launched at a webinar that attracted over 250 registered participants and has been very well received, with over 2,000 downloads. The proposed research aim to build upon this initial effort by delving much deeper into the economic cost and benefits associated with breadfruit agroforestry. This will be accomplished by conducting in-depth interviews with consenting agroforestry farmers to delve into the labor, equipment, supplies, inputs, plants, harvestable yield and losses, crop sales revenues, etc. associated with their agroforestry system(s). Interview protocols will be in line with Merriam and Tisdale (2015) and IRB approval (exempt research) has been submitted to the Univerisity of Hawai’i’s Office of Research Compliance. We will use semi-structured interviews with at least 12 agroforestry farmers to explore quantitative aspects of agroforestry economics. A comparative group of at least 4 orchard farmers will also interviewed to generate an economic understanding non-agroforestry farming of breadfruit. By interviewing both agroforestry and non-agroforestry breadfruit farmers and exploring the economics of their systems, both quantitative and qualitative data will be collected on the different costs, yields, and revenues associated with these models. 

These case studies will be aggregated and presented in the form of a comparative cost-benefit analysis (CBA), in which the farm economics of different agroforestry practices will be made to analyze farm management efficiency and quantify the effects of introducing agroforestry practices on the farm, that is in comparison to the non-agroforestry farms. A partial-farm budget will measure the effects of agroforestry on resource allocation on the farm by calculating the change in income, reduction or elimination of costs, increase in costs, and reduction or elimination of income. While these will not be perfect farm enterprise budgets, they will provide a strong economic assessment coupled with managerial pros and cons that will allow for an unprecedented consideration of agroforestry adoption. 

Through this work, we anticipate incorporating some social costs and benefits accruing off-farm are also included, such as the value of reduced downstream erosion from tree growing.  Sullivan et al. 1992 recommend that “economic assessment need not always and should never only rely upon quantitative indicators used by economists. It is valuable to obtain an independent assessment of agroforestry technologies from farmers who are using technologies.” When collecting and analyzing quantitative data for the cost-benefit analysis, qualitative descriptions of the farmers’ perspectives on environmental and other outputs will be explored. The case study research will also document farmer’s successful crop combinations that could be potentially replicable on other farms within the ‘Ulu Producers Cooperative. Already the cooperative sells together ‘ulu, kalo [taro], sweet potato, cassava, and kabocha pumpkins. The cooperative’s shared processing facilities are sites where companion crops can be aggregated to make product transfer easier to consumers. This work will be conducted by PhD student Ball and supported by PI Lincoln. 

The economic case studies will be complemented by intensive documentation of an agroforestry demonstration site. In 2022, a five-acre breadfruit agroforestry plot was developed in partnership with OK Farms, with four subsections representing different agroforestry layouts and co-crops. This site was designed and implemented specifically as a validation site for the initial parameterization that was conducted for the Overyield economic forecasting software. For 18 months, all costs (supplies, labors, inputs) and revenues (yields) have been tracked within the demonstration plot. Through this proposal, we aim to conduct an additional three years of monitoring and tracking to bring the site into maturity and provide a five-year timeframe of detailed economic costs and revenues from four agroforestry layouts. Our choice of what data to measure, when, and how often is based on recommendations our collaborators Propagate Group PBC and recommendations of the working group on Methods and Models of Economic Analyses for Financial and Economic Analyses of Agroforestry Systems by Sullivan et al. (1992), a book archiving the proceedings of a workshop held in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. This work will be conducted by the site technician who has overseen the efforts to date (David Girbino). 

Both economic assessments will be used to review and refine the parameters that were initially developed for the Overyield economic forecasting software. Based on the more detailed assessments of farmer costs and benefits associated with orchard and agroforestry farming of breadfruit and companion crops, each of the Overyield parameters will be reviewed and updated where appropriate. Based on the revised economic forecasting model, prediction of the performance of the four sub-plots of the OK Farms demonstration agroforestry plot will be determined and cross-checked against the detailed cost and revenue data generated from the site. We will also aim to incorporate some ecological outcomes into the Overyield software, which it is already geared to do.  For instance, recent work has documented site-specific carbon sequestration associated with breadfruit biomass (Livingston and Lincoln, in press), well-published values of agroforestry soil conservation are available (e.g. Labrière et al., 2015), and nitrogen inputs for perennial groundcovers commonly used in Hawai’i are available (https://hawaiicovercropcalc.oahurcd.org/). Through an extensive literature review, preliminary outcomes for important ecological parameters (as identified through the interviews) will be included into the Overyield forcast.  This work will be conducted by PI Lincoln and Propagate Chief Research Officer Harry Greene. 

Research Objective 2: Surveying farmers about barriers to adopting agroforestry 

This research objective will be achieved by surveying farmers statewide about their perceptions and barriers to adopting agroforestry practices. We will work with local extension agents and farmer organizations to reach a maximum number of participants, aiming for ~200 respondents. The surveys will be conducted in person at farm visits, various agricultural meetings and events, and online. The survey will occur from the middle of the first year to the beginning of the second year of the SARE project so that the results can inform the bulk of the educational and outreach activities. Results from the survey will primarily inform about what are the dominant barriers to agroforestry adoption. However, with enough respondents we may also be able to identify specific subgroups (for instance based on their perceptions of agroforestry) and how to specifically target the needs of those groups (based on the dominant barriers within each group). This research object will help to guide some of the key educational objectives. 

The survey protocol will be overseen by PI Lincoln, who has previously conducted multiple agricultural survey-based data collections (e.g., Eng et al 2021; Fardkhales and Lincoln 2021; Lincoln and Ardoin 2015, 2016; Lincoln and Langston 2018; Needham and Lincoln 2019). IRB exemption request has been submitted to the University of Hawai’i’s Office of Research Compliance. The survey instrument will utilize Likert scale responses to assess respondents' perceptions of agroforestry practices, the costs and benefits in terms of installation, maintenance, and revenues over time, and the efficacy of specific interventions (e.g., cost-offsetting, technical assistance, etc.). A series of simple responses will be used to characterize participants' current farming practices and any experience or engagement with agroforestry. Finally, two open-ended questions will explore more in-depth reservations and barriers to agroforestry adoption. 

Open-ended answers will be coded for thematic analysis. Quantitative analysis of the survey instrument will be used to generalize, in the context of Hawai’i, what the major perceived benefits and challenges to agroforestry adoption are, as well as what the most effective interventions might be. Qualitative analysis will further explore the true barriers (perceived or not) to adoption are. The results from this simple survey will inform the educational activities described below. While similar work has been conducted before, we feel it is important to resurvey (1) in Hawai’i to capture place-based differences and (2) in the current time as awareness of and barriers to agroforestry adoption are likely changing with increasing education and support being directed towards agroforestry initiatives