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Trees play a critical role in the development of sustainable land use systems in the southern Africa region, but access to tree germplasm is limited. It was hypothesized that facilitating the establishment of farmer nurseries would promote decentralized tree seedling production in an efficient way, while at the same time provide opportunities for building natural, human and social capital. A study was conducted in Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania over 2 years to analyze the productivity of farmer nurseries and their functions in sustainable development. With limited outside support, farmers produced an estimated 6.2 million tree seedlings from 1901 nurseries across the three study areas over two years. Productivity of nurseries depended greatly on access to scarce water sources during the dry season. Farmers located the majority of nurseries therefore in ecologically sensitive dambo locations and along riverbanks, both posing possible land use conflicts in the future due to increasing human populations. Farmers organized two types of nurseries, with group nurseries producing significantly fewer tree seedlings compared to individual nurseries. This was attributed to larger transaction costs associated with organization and capacity building of group nurseries. On the other hand, the success of individual nurseries appeared to depend on human and social “start-up” capital being provided by group nurseries through previous training. In the absence of rigorous valuation of the longer-term effects of both types of nurseries in building natural, human and social capital, it appears that both have a role to play in meeting local demand for tree seedlings. Results generally suggest that smallholder farmers can play a pivotal role in providing tree germplasm for the development of sustainable land use systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Support to farmer nurseries is classified as either “hard” referring to material inputs (tree seed, water, inoculum, tools and fencing) or “soft” (information, training and backstopping advice). Against a background of poor services for smallholder farmers in southern Africa, it was hypothesized that a number of support agents operating at the grass root level together with farmers themselves provide the different support functions needed in farmer nurseries. A study was conducted to evaluate the role of support systems in farmer nurseries in Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania. Furthermore, the early tree planting impact of farmer nurseries was assessed in Malawi. Support for hard inputs came largely from single service providers, with significant and increasing contributions coming from farmers themselves. Soft inputs came from a larger diversity of providers with collaborative effort gaining importance. There is an urgent need to facilitate grassroot level support systems with larger participation from the private sector for tree seed and from the national extension services for provision of training and backstopping advice. It was noted that individual nurseries achieved larger transplanting impact, but this did not translate into higher impact at the landscape level, because group nurseries were the predominant type. Strengthening the human capital of farmers and service providers emerged as critical in increasing impact. Farmer nurseries are shown to play a number of important and interrelated functions in building natural, human and social capital. Monitoring and evaluating farmer nurseries in catalyzing these three functions should therefore receive proper attention in assessing the impact of sustainable land use systems. Policies need to be articulated to address some of the major constraints identified. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]