Abstract
Societal impact statement
Major staple crops are often introduced and cultivated in monocultures. Yams arestaple crops native to the majority of low- and middle-income countries and can pro-vide an alternative to introduced staple crops. [Correction added on 9 January 2026,after first online publication: In the preceding sentence, stable has been corrected tostaple in this version.] We showed that lesser yams cultivated together with teaktrees (planted at the border of the farm) are more profitable than lesser yam mono-culture. This supports the idea that indigenous crops, which are known to be moreresilient to local conditions, are suitable to be integrated in agroforestry systems(with the benefit of having further profits from other crops and/or trees).
Summary
• Lesser yam, Dioscorea esculenta (Lour.) Burkill, is a staple crop massively cultivatedin monoculture (yam monoculture: YM) and more rarely cultivated in agroforestrysystems, where the shading effect of the trees it thought to reduce crop yield. Thisstudy aims to compare agroforestry and monoculture lesser yam systems in termsof tuber productivity, standing stock volume, harvest index (HI), efficiency of stor-age root production (ESRP), and financial analysis.
• We compared plots in YM with two agroforestry systems, trees along border(TAB) and teak–yam intercropping (TYI), in a yam production village in CentralJava. Profitability analysis was done to predict the economic value of the planta-tions and to determine the most beneficial farming system to farmers.
• The YM produced the highest tuber biomass of yam, but the TAB produced thehighest tuber yield (F = 38.977, P < 0.001). YM had the lowest Benefit–Cost Ratio(1.60), compared to TAB (2.01), TYI (1.84), and teak monoculture (TM, 1.90). TMwas less profitable than TYI and TAB based on Net Present Value and EquivalentAnnual Income.
• We found that lesser yam is suitable to grow under the canopy cover, and teaktrees serve as living stakes for yam vines. Furthermore, upon financial analysis,
SDGs:
SDG 2:Zero Hunger
SDG 12:Responsible Consumtion and Production
SDG 15:Life on Land
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