AGROFORESTRY: LEARNING FROM FOUR PIONEERS Written by Mike Abram Interested in agroforestry, but don’t know quite where to start? Four pioneers shared their expertise in an excellent knowledge exchange session at Groundswell.
More farmers and landowners than perhaps ever before are starting to consider agroforestry as a viable enterprise for farmland. Recent government announcements to treble annual tree planting in the UK by May 2024 as part of climate change mitigation and net zero targets is helping to set the agenda.
independent adviser on tackling climate change, recommending 10% of the UK’s crop and livestock area should be agroforestry. The Woodland Trust suggests that would require an extra 39,000ha of agricultural land for agroforestry each year, which by 2050 could deliver 6 million t/ha CO2e in savings.
While that might be in the main for woodland creation, Defra has also recently approved an Environmental Land Management Test and Trials proposal from the Organic Research Centre and partners to explore how farmers can integrate agroforestry at scale.
Currently only 3% of UK’s farmed land is estimated to practice agroforestry, and that shows with technical advice and support only just starting to come on-stream. Early adopters, such as those on a panel at Groundswell, have had to rely on trial and error to make their schemes work, and were able to share some valuable experience on five topics during an hour-long session.
That followed on from the Climate Change Committee, the UK’s
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1. Selecting the right tree Identifying tree crops with market demand was a key focus for Dartington Trust’s 19ha Broadlears Field agroforestry project in Devon, said Harriet Bell, who helped establish the innovative land share agreement between five businesses. “We found people who had specific demands, qualities and quantities, and we endeavoured to design a system that will deliver that outcome. “The other thing we did was try to spread the risk with a variety of different trees. We tried something new in Szechuan pepper, which hadn’t been grown here before, but in a small way compared with staples such as apple and elderflower which we knew www.directdriller.co.uk 9
