Addis Ababa, July 11( ENA)--Agro-forestry can be viewed as a strategy to overcome the lack of success in past tree planting by providing opportunities for both food and tree production on the same unit of land, a scholar of forestry said.

Dr Badege Bishaw of the Oregon State University in the United States says the agro-forestry method could reduce competition for the scarce resource [land].

Dr. Badege was presenting a research paper titled "Agro-forestry for rehabilitation of degraded watersheds in the Ethiopian Highlands" at the International Symposium on Contemporary Development Issues in Ethiopia that opened here on Friday.

"While agro-forestry should not be taken as a panacea for land use problems in Ethiopia, it may be considered as a potential alternative to some of the wasteful land-use practices in the country," Dr. Badege said.

Another paper by Negussie Achalu, Holm Uibrig and Guido Weisshahu of the Dresden University in Germany has also dealt with other benefits of agro-forestry.

"Critical farm constraints such as deteriorating soil quality, loss of biodiversity, and excessive soil erosion could be ameliorated via well-planned agro-forestry practices," reads the abstract of the paper by the three scholars.

More than 30 research papers dealing with four major themes: environment, agriculture and natural resources; science and technology; Private investment and macro-policy as well as human resource development are scheduled to be presented at the two-day symposium.

Opening the Symposium President of the Addis Ababa University (AAU), Professor Andrias Eshete has said the University has been collaborating with the World Bank in the area of development research.

The Institute of Development Research (IDR) at the AAU will soon be a teaching institute, according to Professor Andrias.

This is the second of a bi-annual event jointly organized by IDR, the Ethiopian American Foundation (EAF), the Center for African Development Policy Research (CADPR) and the department of economics, Western Michigan University, USA. The first was held two years back in Western Michigan, Kalamazoo.

The symposium sought to create a forum to hold an informed dialogue on development policy, create synergy and undertake further program that would enable the nation come out of the cycle of poverty, Dr. Workineh Negatu of the IDR told journalists.

Over 150 research scholars from Ethiopian Universities and Universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and South Africa as well as pertinent government representatives were participating in the symposium.