Agroforestry Focus: Tree/system health & productivity

Edwin published in

Agroforestry for Beef & Sheep Farmers – Farming for a Better Climate

Podcast produced as part of the Farming for a Better Climate (FFBC) consortium. Based in Scotland, FFBC provides practical support to benefit the farm and help reduce impacts on the climate. FFBC is run by SRUC on behalf of the Scottish Government. They combine ideas trialled by their volunteer Climate Change Focus Farms and information from up-to-the-minute scientific research, and offer practical advice to help farmers choose the most relevant measures to improve farm performance and resilience to future climate change effects.

This podcast episode explores the many benefits of agroforestry systems; from improved animal welfare with improved shelter, nutritional benefits from grazing access to different tree species, and other health benefits such as parasitic control from the naturally occurring chemicals ingested with the range of plants found within a woodland flora. The webpage also provides information on integrating livestock with trees.

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Edwin published in

Agroforestry Research Trust

The Agroforestry Research Trust is an educational and research organisation based in Devon, England, and founded (by Martin Crawford) in 1992 as a registered non-profit making charity, to educate and conduct research into all aspects of agroforestry and perennial crops. They carry out practical research on their trial grounds (which includes a 25-year-old 2-acre forest garden at the Dartington Estate, south Devon), run courses, publish guides, and sell plants, seeds and books. Various academic and practical research projects have been and continue to be undertaken since its formation. Courses and tours are important aspects of their work. Their website hosts an online shop, information on courses, and lots of useful information on various aspects of agroforestry and different agroforestry systems.

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Edwin published in

Irish Agroforestry Forum

The Irish Agroforestry Forum aims to:
a. Promote the potential and benefits of agroforestry as a multifunctional land use option that integrates trees into agricultural and horticultural systems at a range of levels and spatial orientations, to sustainably produce nutritious, wholesome food and quality timber, while delivering a wide range of ecosystem services.
b. Promote, demonstrate and encourage agroforestry best practice by co-ordinating and organising educational and training activity focused on advisors, consultants, officials/inspectors and farmers/landowners.
c. Encourage innovative on-farm trials, transfer knowledge derived from existing trials and highlight potential areas for future research.
d. Act as a co-ordinated voice for those practicing and promoting agroforestry, collate ideas and feedback, and advise and make submissions to the appropriate policy makers on the potential issues surrounding agroforestry support and measures, to encourage the expansion of agroforestry and enhance its delivery of services.
e. Develop proposals to introduce trees on to farms towards supporting the goal of sustainable and resilient land use, while delivering a wide range of ecosystem services and public goods on the island of Ireland.

From the website you can access content relating to specific areas of agroforestry.

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Edwin published in

The Agroforestry Handbook

This 150-page book, published in 2019, is downloadable from the Soil Association website. The handbook introduces the theory of agroforestry and looks at practical management and design considerations. There is also information on markets and pricing. It is divided into sections on what is agroforestry, agroforestry systems design, silvopasture, silvoarable, hedges, windbreaks, and riparian buffers, and the economic case for agroforestry. The authors are leading researchers and practitioners with decades of experience in agroforestry from around the world.

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Edwin published in

Agroforestry in dairy systems, a part of Sustainable Organic and Low Input Dairying (SOLID)

This project supported developments and innovations in organic and low input dairy systems to maximise on the potential of these systems to deliver environmental goods and biodiversity, and optimise on economic, agronomic and nutritional advantages to develop innovative and sustainable organic and low input dairy systems and supply chains. Of particular interest in the project outputs is a farmer handbook containing a series of technical notes.

The project included investigating the potential of integrating bioenergy production from short rotation coppice with dairy systems for alternative feed resources, improved animal welfare, enhanced productivity and environmental benefits. The website presents findings from the project.

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Edwin published in

AGROMIX

The AGROMIX project focuses on bringing together farmers, researchers and policymakers to explore agroecological solutions for more resilient land use in Europe, developing tools to implement these practices – with a focus on agroforestry and mixed farming. It provides information from previous projects, ongoing trial sites and experiences of farmers and land managers, to identify best options for transitioning towards these systems in each region of Europe.

It is involved in analysing current agricultural value chains, identifying obstacles to innovation in different agro-climatic and socio-economic contexts, and using these findings to present practical solutions to transition towards alternative land use systems.

From its network of 83 agricultural study sites, 12 pilot projects based in three agro-climatic zones (Atlantic, Continental, Mediterranean) are developing, testing and improving models and user-friendly tools to assist land managers in implementing and monitoring climate-resilient land use based on mixed farming and agroforestry principles. Results will be used to develop models and transition scenarios adapted to the climates of each agro-climatic region, presenting policy options for different scales and time frames.

On the website you can find information on the pilot projects and trial sites, scientific publications, videos, and a knowledge hub sharing various useful resources.

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Edwin published in

SustainFARM – Innovative and sustainable intensification of integrated food and non-food systems to develop climate-resilient agro-ecosystems in Europe

This project was led by the University of Copenhagen, with partners in Germany, Spain, Italy, Romania, Poland and the UK – ORC (Organic Research Centre). Via the project website you can access information on case studies, reports, and videos. It also produced the SustainFARM Public Goods Tool – a sustainability assessment for farms that combine food and non-food production.

The main objective was to enhance the agronomic, environmental and economic performance of integrated food and non-food production systems (IFNS) – in which trees, crops and livestock components are integrated in different ways at different scales and include traditional and innovative agroforestry – by optimising productivity and valorising woody components, residual wastes and co-products.

It adopted an innovative case-study approach, whereby locally relevant IFNS worked in close collaboration with the local end-users of the technology such as farmers, advisory services and policy makers. They co-generated technology, relevant at the local scale, to address productivity issues and enhancing valorisation of unused, residual and co-products. They investigated the economic and environmental performance of a range of IFNS across several agri-climatic zones of Europe and worked on designing innovative, resilient and climate-smart IFNS systems. Different means of valorising residual and co-products (woody components and residual wet olive cake etc.) and for multiple uses (bedding material, compost, bioenergy etc.) were demonstrated at facilities in UK and Italy and the knowledge generated shared through the stakeholder platforms.

ORC led work on developing a list of agronomic, environmental and economic indicators to evaluate the sustainability of IFNS. They contributed to the network of IFNS study sites and provided data on: a) Traditional boundary hedgerows with livestock; b) an innovative alley cropping silvopastoral system with short rotation coppice and livestock; c) traditional boundary hedgerows with arable and vegetable crops; d) and an innovative alley cropping silvoarable system with arable and vegetable crops. Project outputs (technical guides, a public goods tool and videos), can all be accessed via the ORC project page. The public goods tool has been updated beyond this project – see seperate entry

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Edwin published in

Agroforestry: Opportunity for European landscape and agriculture (AGFOSY)

The project AGFOSY was implemented under programme ERASMUS+. Seven organisations from six European countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Slovakia and Spain) were involved.

The ambition of the project (mainly focused on continental North and Central Europe) was to build a complex but flexible training system dealing with issues of agroforestry based mainly on case studies and best practice studies that will provide farmers with needed skills, knowledge, competences and motivation to implement agroforestry on their own farms. Training materials, a training platform, and short educational videos on the possibilities of agroforestry implementation on existing farms and the benefits of using it were developed. The links include a link to various study materials which are in the form of 10 modules – presentations with information about major agroforestry systems in Europe, ecological aspects of agroforestry, the historical context to agroforestry systems, management and practice of tree planting, silvopastoral agroforestry systems, silvoarable agroforestry systems, economy and the legal aspects in European agroforestry etc.

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