Planting Policy, Growing Change: How Agroforestry in India is Slowly Taking Root

By Dr. Amardeep Gautam, Isha Outreach Representative | Technical Lead, Banas FPC

India imports timber worth nearly Rs. 1 lakh crore every year. Chances are, much of the wooden furniture, doors, and windows in your home come from wood sourced in Malaysia, Africa, South America, or Indonesia. Meanwhile, back home, we have millions of hectares of arable land perfectly suited for agroforestry—but somehow, farmers in India haven’t been able to tap into this massive market.

This raises an important question: Why can’t Indian farmers benefit from such a promising opportunity?

What makes it more puzzling is that India also has an ambitious goal—to bring one-third of its land under green cover. With crores of farmers tending to their fields every day, using arable land for tree-based farming could be a powerful way to achieve that goal.

Agroforestry isn’t just about timber. It helps improve soil health, increase crop yields, ensure food security, and combat climate change. Movements like Rally for Rivers and Cauvery Calling have shown how tree-based farming can also help revive rivers—the very lifelines of India.

So, with all these benefits, why hasn’t agroforestry become a mainstream farming practice?

Let’s walk through a real-world example.

When Planting Trees Becomes a Legal Maze

Imagine you’re a farmer in a remote village in Karnataka. Encouraged by the rising demand for timber, you decide to plant high-value timber trees on your land. You spend money on saplings, dig planting pits, arrange irrigation, and carefully look after your trees. Over the years, you see them grow—not just as trees, but as a form of long-term investment, even a kind of insurance.

But when it’s finally time to harvest, you're hit with an unpleasant surprise. Even though the trees grew on your farmland, they’re not treated as your agricultural produce. Legally, they fall under “forest produce,” and harvesting them means dealing with complicated procedures, permits, and paperwork.

You need approvals from multiple government departments—forest, revenue, and agriculture—each with its own forms and processes. And getting these permissions often involves running from office to office, which isn’t easy for a farmer already managing day-to-day responsibilities.

The Policy Shift—Slow but Promising

Over the years, the government has made efforts to simplify things. In 2014, the National Agroforestry Policy was launched to encourage farmers to integrate trees with agriculture. In 2018, an expert committee pushed for expanding the “Trees Outside Forests” (TOF) area by bringing tree-based systems into mainstream farming.

While these policies were well-intentioned, they didn’t really address the root issue—the legal status of trees grown on private farmland.

The problem dates back to the Indian Forest Act of 1927, a colonial-era law that defined all timber—even that grown on private land—as forest produce. This meant farmers needed forest department permissions to harvest or transport trees they had grown themselves.

This outdated regulation remained in force for nearly a century—until 2023. That year, a landmark amendment to the Forest Conservation Act was passed. The updated law clearly stated that it applies only to land officially notified as forest under the 1927 Act (or similar laws), or land recorded as forest in government records as of October 25, 1980. In simple terms, farmers could now grow trees on their farmland without worrying about being penalised for harvesting them.

But the Roadblocks Weren’t Over Yet

Even with this big win, another major hurdle remained: felling and transit permissions.

Each state had its own list of tree species that required special permission for cutting or transporting. These rules varied widely, and navigating them was often confusing and frustrating for farmers. The National Transit Pass System launched in 2020 aimed to fix this by creating a central online system for permissions. But so far, it hasn’t gained much traction—only about 950 farmers have registered on the platform.

Recognising the need for further simplification, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change introduced “Model Rules for Felling of Trees on Agricultural Land” in June 2025. These rules offer a unified, farmer-friendly framework for states to adopt.

Under the new harmonized rules:

• A National Timber Management System (NTMS) will help farmers register trees and track permissions, reducing red tape and delays. Farmers will need to register their plantation lands on the NTMS portal, providing details such as land ownership, location, species planted, and planting dates. They must also upload geotagged photos of the trees and update the information periodically.

• Farmers with fewer than 10 trees can get felling and transit permissions automatically through this portal as an No Objection Certificate (NOC) after uploading photos of the trees.

• Farmers with more than 10 trees will need to apply online, and a designated agency will carry out a verification before granting permission.

• The existing State Level Committees (SLCs), initially formed under the Wood-Based Industries (Establishment & Regulation) Guidelines, 2016, are responsible for implementing these rules and advising state governments on simplification of procedures. They will also empanel agencies with expertise in forest management or agroforestry to verify applications for tree felling.

These rules aim to make it easier for farmers to grow, harvest, and sell timber without getting stuck in a bureaucratic maze, while still allowing each state to adapt them to local needs.

From Policy to Practice: A Greener Vision for India

The Rally for Rivers movement, initiated by Sadhguru, highlighted the urgent need to revive India’s rivers by increasing green cover in river basins. With 162 million people supporting the cause in just 30 days, it sent a strong signal to policymakers: the public wants sustainable, long-term solutions. In line with the RFR recommendations, NITI Aayog issued a National River Revitalization Advisory to all the 29 states and 7 UTs, with the Government of India formulating projects to rejuvenate 13 major rivers by announcing a budget of INR 19,000 crore.  But for this to truly succeed, farmers must be empowered to grow trees on their land—without facing unnecessary legal and administrative roadblocks.

Just like a sapling takes time to grow into a tall, fruit-bearing or timber-yielding tree, the journey of agroforestry policy in India is also slow but steady. The 2023 amendment and the new model rules could be the turning points from where this evolution begins to pick up pace. Here’s to nurturing a system that lets farmers grow not just crops, but trees—and a greener, more prosperous future for Bharat.