Farming System: All

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Public Goods Tool

The Tool helps farmers assess the sustainability of their farming system within a 12-month period. It can also be used as a decision support tool for farmers and land managers, to help them to identify the possible impacts of changing their system on performance across the full range of sustainability indicators.

The assessment takes a broad approach, using information that a farmer would have in their farm records already. It takes between 30 minutes and an hour to complete, depending on the complexity of the farm. It assesses a farm on a number of areas which may be impacted by agricultural management practices and are related to public goods such as water quality, air quality, etc.

Farmers can also use the tool to investigate the effects of changing or introducing new practices or management to the farm on the sustainability indicators.
It can be used on farms in Europe of all sizes that produce both food (crops, livestock, vegetables, fruit, olives) and non-food (timber and woodfuel) products and by anyone with an interest in the sustainability of a particular farm and access to information on the inputs and outputs from the farm (e.g. yields, fuel use and management).

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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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European Agroforestry Federation (EURAF)

EURAF aims to promote the use of trees on farms as well as any kind of silvopastoralism throughout the different environmental regions of Europe. It has more than 500 members from 20 different European countries.

From the website you can access policy briefings and explore information associated with over 20 European countries, news, events, projects and farm case studies, and other resources. You can also subscribe to their newsletter and there is the option to become a member of EURAF.

EURAF aims to promote adoption of agroforestry practices across Europe by:
– Any communication means, including lobbying for agroforestry adapted policies at the European scale.
– Organising a bi-annual conference.
– Sending an electronic newsletter to all members.
– Managing a dedicated website, with functionalities to share information, scientific results and policy issues on agroforestry.
– Achieving specific agreements with national and international agroforestry societies or other related societies for the exchange of information and the organisation of joint congresses, symposiums and seminars.
– Meeting monthly to delineate actions to target awareness of agroforestry systems mainly at policy level.
– Promoting events and participate in research projects providing networking throughout Europe.

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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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AGFORWARD (AGroFORestry that Will Advance Rural Development) best practice leaflets

The AGFORWARD research project focussed on promoting agroforestry practices in Europe that will advance sustainable rural development. Material providing guidance on agroforestry innovation and agroforestry best practices was produced as part of the project. This series of leaflets (produced by Philippe Van Lerberghe from the Institute of Forestry Development in France and reviewed by various member of the AGFORWARD team), provide valuable guidance to farmers on how to plan, create and manage an agroforestry system. The leaflets focus on objectives for developing an agroforestry system (using alley cropping as an example), site selection, selecting tree species and planting material, planning the layout and spacing of trees, tree protection, land preparation and tree planting, and tree pruning and management to maximise revenue.

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AGFORWARD (AGroFORestry that Will Advance Rural Development)

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.

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AFINET – AgroForestry Innovations NETwork handbook of innovation factsheets

 

A series of factsheets produced as part of the AFINET project which are grouped under headings of defining agroforestry, various agroforestry practices, design and management, agroforestry outputs/products, collaboration (social), economy, and policy. They impart alot of practical information, along with potential benefits

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AFINET – AgroForestry Innovations NETwork

AFINET was an EU thematic network established to foster exchange and knowledge transfer between scientists and practitioners involved in agroforestry. It promoted putting research results into practice and applying innovative ideas to face challenges and resolve problems.

There is a European reservoir of scientific and practical knowledge of agroforestry where all the information collected and the materials created in the project are published – in the ‘Knowledge Cloud.’

You can access information via the main website on the RAINs groups – A European interregional network composed of ‘Regional Agroforestry Innovation Networks (RAINs). They were working groups during the duration of the project created in 9 regions of Europe (Spain, UK, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Poland, France and Finland), co-ordinated by an ‘Innovation Broker’ (who focused on establishing relationships within the network and promoting knowledge exchange). They represented different climatic, geographical, social and cultural conditions and include a balanced representation of farmers, policy makers, advisory services, extension services, etc.

You can also access videos, technical articles and factsheets.

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FarmTree

Spreadsheets can help agroforestry practitioners plan for agroforestry investments. The FarmTree Tool quantifies and forecasts the performance of agroforestry systems and can be used to design plot plans. It holds by default climate, soil and tree/crop/input data of a particular regions in the world. When practitioners key in plot cover (annuals, perennials) the tool accesses soil data and climate projections, and generates plot plans with 60+ vegetation, yield, carbon, financial, labour, soil fertility, hydrology, and other indicators.
Project designers require landscape or project-level economic and financial assessments, or carbon and water performance projections. Single-plot projections can be combined into project cost-benefit analysis, typically to help assess the economic feasibility annexes of project proposals.
The tool is available under license that comes with training.

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Agroforestry and Farm Woodland Modelling Tool

This customisable modelling tool explores the economic impacts of different agroforestry and farm woodland systems (silvopastoral orchards, shelterbelts, broadleaf woodland etc) on different farm types (cereals, horticulture, dairy etc). (Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the link to download the model)

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