Introduction to Agroforestry

Summary

In this presentation, Sarah Lovell, Director of the Center for Agroforestry at the University of Missouri, introduces agroforestry—the deliberate integration of trees and shrubs with crops or livestock. She highlights its diverse applications, from tropical coffee landscapes and home gardens to temperate windbreaks, silvopasture, and urban food forests. The talk emphasizes the ecological, economic, and social benefits of agroforestry, including enhanced biodiversity, improved soil and water quality, and sustainable food production. Lovell also explores emerging trends in commercial-scale production agroforestry, demonstrating how multi-layered systems can balance productivity with resilience, offering innovative alternatives to conventional agriculture.

Takeaways

• 🌱 Agroforestry is the deliberate integration of trees and shrubs with crops or livestock, combining agriculture and forestry principles.
• ☕ Coffee production often uses agroforestry systems, where coffee shrubs grow under shade trees, improving crop quality and providing additional products like fruits and firewood.
• 🏡 Home gardens in tropical regions are small, diverse agroforestry systems that produce food and other materials for subsistence or community sharing.
• 🪶 Indigenous peoples practiced forms of agroforestry, integrating forest resources with crops and livestock, recognized today as Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
• 🌾 The Prairie States Forestry Project (1930s) used windbreaks across 30,000 U.S. farms to protect soil during the Dust Bowl, demonstrating historical agroforestry practices.
• 🌳 Key temperate agroforestry practices include alley cropping, forest farming, riparian buffers, silvopasture, windbreaks, and emerging urban food forests.
• 🌾 Alley cropping combines rows of trees with crops in between, allowing dual production from the same land area.
• 🍄 Forest farming grows high-value specialty crops like mushrooms and ginseng under existing forest canopies.
• 💧 Riparian buffers protect water quality by filtering sediment, nutrients, and contaminants from adjacent lands.
• 🐄 Silvopasture integrates trees with forage and livestock, improving animal welfare, productivity, and ecosystem health.
• 🏙️ Urban food forests are multi-layered perennial systems in cities that enhance food diversity, resilience, and sustainability.
• 🌰 Production-focused agroforestry can combine specialty crops like nuts and berries with conventional crops to increase yield, biodiversity, and ecosystem services.
• 🌿 Agroforestry enhances both productivity and ecological complexity, attracting beneficial wildlife and supporting sustainable, resilient agricultural systems.

Q & A

What is the definition of agroforestry?

Agroforestry is the deliberate integration of trees and shrubs with crops or livestock, combining agricultural and forestry practices to improve productivity, ecological complexity, and resilience.

How does coffee agroforestry differ from a coffee monoculture?

In coffee agroforestry, coffee shrubs are grown alongside overstory trees and other plant species, providing shade, fruits, or firewood. In a monoculture, coffee is grown alone without other species, reducing biodiversity and ecological benefits.

What is a home garden in the context of tropical agroforestry?

A home garden is a small, diverse garden system in tropical regions that produces food and other materials for subsistence or community sharing, integrating multiple plant species in a condensed area.

What historical example demonstrates early agroforestry practices in the United States?

During the 1930s Dust Bowl, the Prairie States Forestry Project planted 18,000 miles of windbreaks across 30,000 farms from North Dakota to Texas to protect soil and crops, an early large-scale implementation of agroforestry.

What are the five traditionally recognized temperate agroforestry practices?

The five key practices are: alley cropping, forest farming, riparian buffers, silvopasture, and windbreaks.

What is alley cropping and how is it used?

Alley cropping involves planting rows of trees with sufficient spacing to grow a companion crop in the alleyways between the trees, such as Chinese chestnut with wheat, allowing multiple products to be harvested from the same area.

How does silvopasture benefit livestock and the environment?

Silvopasture integrates trees and forage with livestock, providing shade that improves animal comfort and performance, while livestock grazing helps maintain vegetation and recycles nutrients in the system.

What are urban food forests and their benefits?

Urban food forests are multi-layered systems of trees and shrubs in urban areas designed to produce food. They improve sustainability, increase plant diversity, and provide a variety of products even in limited spaces.

What is production agroforestry and how does it differ from conventional agriculture?

Production agroforestry focuses on commercial food production using multi-species systems of trees and shrubs. Unlike conventional monocultures, it integrates specialty crops, improves ecological benefits, and can optimize both productivity and environmental services.

How do agroforestry systems balance productivity and ecological complexity?

Agroforestry systems aim to provide a mix of products while maintaining species diversity and ecological benefits. While highly productive monocultures are low in complexity, agroforestry increases overall system resilience and provides multiple ecosystem services.

What role does traditional ecological knowledge play in agroforestry?

Traditional ecological knowledge from indigenous communities provides insights into sustainable agroforestry practices, such as the integration of fruits, nuts, and other forest products with agriculture, which inform modern practices and respect cultural heritage.

Can agroforestry help address environmental challenges?

Yes, agroforestry practices such as windbreaks, riparian buffers, and diverse planting systems can protect soil, improve water quality, reduce erosion, enhance biodiversity, and provide sustainable alternatives to conventional monoculture farming.