ARE TROPICAL AGROFORESTRY HOME GARDENS SUSTAINABLE

While tropical multistrata home gardens (or tree home gardens) are classically said to be sound, efficient and sustainable land-use systems, there is little quantitative evidence and detailed analysis of home gardens in the literature to support this. In order to strengthen the basis of this assumption and to contribute to an operational understanding of sustainability, a literature review was applied to home gardens, covering different bio-physical and socio-economic conditions. For this, a series of sustainability descriptors were identified, hypotheses formulated on what should be the effect of home gardens on these descriptors, and possible indicators confirming the hypotheses mentioned, when found in the literature. Home gardens possess a number of sustainability attributes, with regard not only to their ability to meet a number of farmers' needs without negatively affecting the resource base, and in many cases even improving it, but also to their potential to meet several economic, social, ecological and institutional conditions which contribute to their sustainability.