Agroforestry

Agroforestry is an integrated approach of using the interactive benefits from combining trees and shrubs with crops and/or livestock. It combines agricultural and forestry technologies to create more diverse, productive, profitable, healthy and sustainable land-use systems.

According to the World Agroforestry Centre, Agroforestry is a collective name for land use systems and practices in which woody perennials are deliberately integrated with crops and/or animals on the same land management unit.

The integration can be either in a spatial mixture or in a temporal sequence. There are normally both ecological and economic interactions between woody and non-woody components in agroforestry.

In agroforestry systems, trees or shrubs are intentionally used within agricultural systems, or non-timber forest products are cultured in forest settings.

Knowledge, careful selection of species and good management of trees and crops are needed to optimize the production and positive effects within the system and to minimize negative competitive effects.
In some areas, a narrow definition of agroforestry might simply be: trees on farms.

Hence, agroforestry, farm forestry and family forestry can be broadly understood as the commitment of farmers, alone or in partnerships, towards the establishment and management of forests on their land.

Where many landholders are involved the result is a diversity of activity that reflects the diversity of aspirations and interests within the community.

Impacts

Agroforestry systems can be advantageous over conventional agricultural and forest production methods through increased productivity, economic benefits, social outcomes and the ecological goods and services provided.

Biodiversity in agroforestry systems is typically higher than in conventional agricultural systems. Agroforestry incorporates at least several plant species into a given land area and creates a more complex habitat that can support a wider variety of birds, insects, and other animals.

Agroforestry also has the potential to help reduce climate change since trees take up and store carbon at a faster rate than crop.

Alley Cropping

Alley cropping, sometimes referred to as 'sun systems', is a form of intercropping, and can be applied by farmers as a strategy to combat soil erosion, to increase the diversity of farmland, as a means for crop diversification and to derive other integrated benefits.

In this practice, crops are planted in strips in the alleys formed between rows of trees and/or shrubs. The potential benefits of this design include the provision of shade in hot, dry environments (reducing water loss from evaporation), retention of soil moisture, increase in the structural diversity of the site and wildlife habitat.

The woody perennials in these systems can produce fruit, fuelwood, fodder, or trimmings to be made into mulch.

Potential impacts of agroforestry can include:


-Reducing poverty through increased production of agroforestry products for home consumption and sale

-Contributing to food security by restoring farm soil fertility for food crops and production of fruits, nuts and edible oils

-Reducing deforestation and pressure on woodlands by providing fuelwood grown on farms

-Increasing diversity of on-farm tree crops and tree cover to buffer farmers against the effects of global climate change

-Improving nutrition to lessen the impacts of hunger and chronic illness associated with HIV/AIDS

-Augmenting accessibility to medicinal trees, the main source of medication for 80% of Africa's population.

Forest Farming

Forest farming, also known as 'shade systems', is the sustainable, integrated cultivation of both timber and non-timber forest products in a forest setting. Forest farming is separate and distinct from the opportunistic exploitation / wild harvest of non-timber forest products.

Successful forest farming operations produce: mushrooms, maple and birch syrup, native plants used for landscaping and floral greenery (e.g. salal, sword fern, bear grass, cedar boughs and others), medicinal and pharmaceutical products (e.g. ginseng, goldenseal, cascara or yew bark), wild berries and fruit.

Permaforestry

Permaforestry is an approach to the wildcrafting and harvesting of the forest biomass that uses cultivation to improve the natural harmonious systems. It is a relationship of interdependence between humans and the natural systems in which the amount of biomass available from the forest increases with the health of its natural systems.

Examples of bioproducts derived from biomass that are created through permaforestry:
Honey, maple syrup and other tree saps, gourmet foods, functional foods, berries, wild mushrooms, ginseng, wild rice, herbs, fiddleheads, fish, frogs and crustaceans, pharmaceuticals, natural health products, essential oils, educational products, arts and crafts, decorative products, floral and greenery, garden horticultural products, woodworking, lumber, biochemicals, biofuels and bioenergy.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Lew Godfrey

Green Harlow Productions