Agroforestry

What is it?

Agroforestry is a method of agriculture which combines trees and crops, or trees and pastures, within the same plot. These systems are one of a wide range of restoration approaches used for restoring degraded forests and agricultural lands.

How does this restoration technique work?

Agroforestry integrates the use of trees (and shrubs) with agricultural crops and/or pasture for a variety of benefits and services such as improved use of soil and water resources, multiple fuel, fodder and food products as well as habitats for associated species. There are five main forms of agroforestry:

• Alley cropping: where food crops are grown in the spaces between hedgerows of trees and shrubs;
• Forest farming: where high value speciality crops are grown under a managed forest canopy;
• Silvo-pastoralism: a combination of trees, forage and livestock managed together in a single system;
• Riparian forest buffers: a forest buffer adjacent to a stream, lake or wetland containing a combination of trees, shrubs and other perennial plants;
• Windbreaks: trees planted as windbreaks to limit soil erosion.

These techniques integrate technologies such as contour farming, multi-storey cropping, intercropping, multiple cropping, bush and tree fallows, parkland, or home gardens. For agricultural landscapes, agroforestry systems involve simultaneously growing crops and trees on the same piece of land. Establishing and managing trees on active agricultural land, either through planting or regeneration, can help to improve crop productivity, provides dry season fodder, increases soil fertility, and enhances water retention. On pastureland (silvo-pasture), agroforestry integrates livestock or forage production, with forestry on the same land plot.

Where can agroforestry be applied?

Globally, agroforestry systems cover approximately 1 billion hectares of land and contribute to the livelihoods of over 900 million people. They are currently more common in temperate, sub-tropical and tropical zones, and include a wide range of land uses and practices. In the tropics, agroforestry systems are practised by smallholder farmers especially.

What are the impacts of agroforestry?

Agroforestry systems have received increased attention owing to their capacity to sequester CO₂ from the atmosphere in above ground biomass, especially if this is linked with climate change mitigation strategies. Improved agricultural and fallow land is more effective for above ground carbon sequestration and silvo-pastoral systems are more effective for soil carbon sequestration.

Agroforestry systems are a suitable tool for landscape restoration because they can enhance physical, chemical and biological soil characteristics, thereby increasing soil fertility, controlling erosion and improving water availability.

Agroforestry systems can also provide many ecosystem services such as the provision of timber and a diverse set of non-timber forest products, such as fodder, fuelwood, food and building materials, thereby contributing to the resilience of farming systems. By providing these ecosystem services, which increase food and nutritional security, agroforestry can help to enhance livelihoods in rural communities, generate income and alleviate poverty. The restoration of degraded landscapes, using agroforestry, can increase the resilience of communities to shocks, including drought and food shortages, and help adapt to the effects of climate change.