This project aimed to promote agroforestry practices in Europe that will advance sustainable rural development, i.e. improved competitiveness and social and environmental enhancement.
It had four main aims:
– To improve understanding of the technical, environmental and socio-economic functioning of existing and new extensive and intensive agroforestry systems;
– to identify, develop and field-test innovations related to provisioning and other ecosystem services (biodiversity, carbon storage, nutrient cycling, resilience, stress toleration) to improve the benefits and viability of agroforestry systems in Europe
– to develop and update designs and practices adapted for areas where agroforestry is currently not practised or is declining
– and to promote the wider adoption of appropriate agroforestry systems in Europe.
Central to the project was developing a number of participatory research and development networks where project participants worked with land managers and other stakeholders, using existing knowledge and experience of their own multifunctional systems, to identify key challenges and potential innovations to improve their systems. AGFORWARD used a participatory approach to ensure the effective involvement of all these stakeholders. In total, the project worked with 40 stakeholder groups and over 800 farmers and other stakeholders across 13 countries. All the major agroforestry systems in Europe were represented from Mediterranean areas in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Portugal to the boreal areas of Sweden, and from grazed orchards in the UK to the wood pastures of Romania.
