Seven farmers and a research farm in Devon, UK, are integrating trees with livestock on their farms and monitoring the impact on livestock behaviour, biodiversity and soil health metrics as part of a 12-year field lab through the Innovative Farmers programme involving the Woodland Trust, Organic Research Centre, Rothamsted Research and FWAG SW. Three designs are being tested, with a mixture of cluster planting, regular spacing and shelterbelts.
The farm enterprises are a mixture of dairy, beef, sheep and arable. The Woodland Trust have worked with the farmers to design planting systems. Each design has been chosen to suit the grazing requirements of the farmers as well as fitting into the natural environment surrounding the chosen fields. Over 12 years, the farmers are monitoring tree establishment and factors that may affect this (fencing, wildlife, livestock interactions and the use of decoy rubbing posts and ‘sacrificial willow’ to distract livestock from protected trees and shrubs). The aim is to provide the first ever set of long-term data practically grounded in the reality of commercial farms.
From this page you can access a series of short films featuring farmers explaining why there are researching silvopasture and detailed technical information on the three designs being tested.
This Paradigm Shift Film features some of Sweden and England’s agroforestry pioneers explaining how we can play a key role in restoring ecosystems through our food production…
Martin Crawford, Director of the Agroforestry Research Trust in the UK, focuses on agroforestry as a perennial intercropping system, equipping us with more food security and resilience to increasing weather extremes. He stresses the need to move from annual crops to perennial crops and become carbon negative through incorporating trees and shrubs in growing systems, showing some crops that can be grown in forest gardens. Professor Martin Wolfe, founder of Wakelyns Agroforestry Farm, Suffolk, highlights the many benefits of diversity and touches on tree management by coppicing and pollarding and calculating the performance of crops grown in alleys compared to crops grown in a large field or plantation using the Land Equivalent Ratio. The various cropping systems at Wakelyns are sequestering carbon, promoting cycling of nutrients and water, providing a haven of biodiversity, and helping reduce problems with pests and diseases.
Johanna Björklund from Örebro University, Sweden, explains the different kinds of agroforestry systems and the need for agroforestry; increased efficiency, reduced reliance on fossil fuels, and recycling phosphorous, nitrogen and other nutrients between plants and animals. She suggests some actions needed to increase food security and the use of agroforestry in the future, and what you could do if you were wanting to establish an agroforestry system. Philipp Weiss, Stjärnsund, Sweden, explains the principles of the forest garden, what we can learn from it and the deciduous forest, and how a forest garden can be built into an already established woodland. He explains that Bagarmossen Forest Garden, Stockholm is creating and maintaining its own fertility. He also explains the concepts and principles of permaculture and what it can offer as a way of helping to meet some of the global challenges, equipping people at the local community level.
Short film focusing on the forest garden at farm Rydeholm on the Scandinavian Söderslätt. The main tree crops are sweet chestnut (Castaneva sativa), walnut (Juglans regia), hazelnut (Corylus), korean pine (Pinus koraiensis), almonds (Prunus dulcis), ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) and araucaria (Araucaria araucana). Biodiversity, ecosystem services equivalent to wild, forest-like environments and regeneration, have been set here as equal goals with the food production. The long-term vision is to replace the annual crops (cereals, oilseed rape and sugar beets) with tree crops; sweet chestnut and araucaria (which produces seeds) replacing cereals and hazelnut, and walnut replacing vegetable oil. The film is based on interviews with Anders Lindén, the sixth generation on the farm and one of the pioneers of the Swedish agroforestry movement. Food production has to take the increasing lack of natural resources (water, living soils and fossil energy), into account and agroforestry systems have been shown to be very beneficial in improving the resilience in agricultural systems.
Webinar introducing the UK Agroforestry Carbon Code project (which is exploring the feasability of developing a carbon code for agroforestry), featuring representatives from the Soil Association, Woodland Trust and Organic Research Centre. It includes short presentations on woodland and trees in the farmed landscape, how agroforestry can deliver for nature and climate, and landscape carbon quantification.
This tool was developed as part of the TWECOM project for farmers, land managers and advisors interested in harvesting woodfuel from hedges and monitoring potential biodiversity impacts – to help with decision making in the planning and design of hedge management for woodfuel.
You can access and print off survey sheets you can use to assess hedges, enter your collected data on the spreadsheet, and view results. There is an accompanying survey handbook you can also refer to.
Three short technical guides produced as part of the WOOdchip for Fertile Soils (WOOFS) project outlining observations and results from trials in which uncomposted and composted woodchip from on-farm woody resources was applied as a soil improver. The guides focus on key results from the trials, logistics and economics, and put the use of ramial (fresh uncomposted) woodchip in a whole farm context, considering the wider ecosystem service benefits, barriers to adoption, support available, and regulations that farmers and growers should be aware of.
There is evidence to suggest that applying uncomposted (ramial) woodchip at an appropriate phase in a crop rotation can increase soil organic matter, water holding capacity, and the nutrient levels of soils.
The WOOdchip for Fertile Soils (WOOFS) project was a European Innovation Partnership (EIP) Project part funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. It was led by the Organic Research Centre (ORC) with Wakelyns Agroforestry, Iain Tolhurst (Tolhurst Organic CiC), Ben Raskin (Soil Association), Christine Watson (SRUC), William Hamer (Forestry Consultant), Robert Benford (Down Farm), and Nigel Stimson (Tree Shear Services). It trialled adding uncomposted versus composted woodchip from on-farm woody resources as a soil improver. By linking management of farm hedges and trees with the improvement of soils for agricultural production and providing an additional economic incentive for management of hedges and on-farm woody resources, it aimed to increase the sustainability of the system as a whole.
The project hub page held on the Agricology website hosts some project outputs that can be found on the ORC’s project page alongside other particularly relevant content for farmers, including a presentation, bulletin article, webinar recordings and event footage.
FABulous Farmers is a European project designed to support farmers in the transition to more agroecological practices on their farms. The project aims to reduce the reliance on external inputs such as chemical fertilisers and pesticides, by encouraging the use of methods and interventions that increase the farm’s Functional AgroBiodiversity (FAB). These are targeted measures of biodiversity in and around the field to improve pollination, pest management, soil and water quality on the farmland. The project assists farmers in identifying and adopting relevant FAB-methods specifically for their farm. Networking sessions are organised in which the farmers can exchange ideas and experiences. Demonstration fields show effects of particular FAB-measures. The effect of some FAB-measures taken on the farm can be improved further by similar actions in the surrounding area. There are 14 active pilot areas in 6 countries (BE, NL, LUX, FR, UK and DE) in which they co-operate with other stakeholders, e.g. landowners and municipalities, to come to an integrated FAB-landscape-integration plan. Results of the trial fields and on farms overall will be communicated to European and regional policy makers.
From the website information can be accessed on agroforestry establishment, management, benefits and legal aspects.
This website provides information on agroforestry screening, mapping, environmental benefits on a regional scale, case study projects, and information on, and links to, farm management analytics software and design software for advisors.
Regen Farmer was founded by a serial tech entrepreneur and agroforestry designer and software engineer with wide experience from environmental modelling, GIS based web development and machine learning. It is focused on accelerating the adoption of regenerative land use practices, with a goal of supporting farmers, communities, governments and organisations to transition 5 million hectares of agricultural land to regenerative agroforestry by 2025 by enabling farmers to adopt and maintain regenerative agroforestry on a global scale. The aim is to achieve this by:
– Providing agroforestry project development solutions for farmers and agricultural advisors to make agroforestry more attractive for landowners.
– Developing management and monitoring software to ensure that farmers continue to practice regenerative agroforestry through continuous regenerative management support.
A project funded by the European Union to boost agroforestry through digital tools in order to meet climate, biodiversity and farming sustainability goals (launched Nov 2022).
The Digital Tools to help Agroforestry meet Climate, Biodiversity and Farming Sustainability Goals: Linking Field and Cloud (DigitAF) project is promoting agroforestry in Europe by developing digital decision-guidance tools so that trees are appropriately integrated on farms to achieve profitable food production, reduced net greenhouse gas emissions, and enhanced biodiversity. Tools are being developed for use by i) policy makers, ii) farmers, and iii) beneficiaries of agroforestry products and services. The tools are being developed in the context of six “Living Labs” in the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Sponsor: European Union Horizon Europe with UKRI Innovate
