Hedgerows and buffer strips can also be used for a similar purpose in agroforestry. Besides the money, farmers may be unwilling to invest the time needed to upgrade to an agroforestry system as well. Trees used in this way can be productive as well, and agroforestry often makes use of plants like coffee, cocoa, rubber, and oil palm. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. It also reduces the kinds of brushfires that are all too common in the area today. Omissions? Those endeavours failed to address many basic needs of small-scale resource-limited farmers in the tropics, such as the essential timber and non-timber products derived from trees, including food, fuel, fodder, building materials, medicine, and income, as well as the ecosystem sustainability that trees maintain. Most importantly, you’ll get to know some common examples of how agroforestry is applied in practice. Other Words from agroforestry Example Sentences Learn More about … It’s nature’s way of composting! Fungi rapidly break down organic matter like rotting logs and leaves, and helps to turn them in to rich soil. Instead of cutting down forests to make empty fields and plains for animals to grow on and crops to grow, some trees could be incorporated into the system. Under these conditions, agroforestry project designers might have to consider supporting a long-term Agroforestry helps cut down on smell and dust, and trees will even help to reduce noise by blocking sound. Trees are deliberately introduced to open fields or other areas where animals were already foraging in most cases. Windbreaks are created by strategically placing shrubs or trees as a barrier against wind. What is Agroforestry? Cluster planting has many advantages of row spacing and provides more localized shade. Growing on steep hillsides can be difficult. Hopefully, as more and more farmers are willing to give agroforestry a try, the improvements to biodiversity, soil health, and other benefits will start to become apparent and create a snowball effect that inspires others to follow along as well. Considered as an integral part of productive agriculture, this practice can include forests that are established by landholders and existing native forests. Alley cropping of mixed coffee and cacao crops and lower storey crops, annuals or perennials, where trees are planted to provide nutrients for those crops is a common example of agroforestry in Latin America. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Whether for yourself, your neighbor, or your community, agroforestry is just more appealing. Right now, millions of acres of rainforest are being cleared to make pastures for animals to graze. Hopefully, with time, this will gradually shift and more and more farmers will start to realize that it’s an option. Living fences also give birds and other insect-eating predators a habitat. In Roman times, we have written records of people using woody perennials alongside their farming. At its simplest level, agroforestry is combining agriculture (crops and livestock) with forestry (trees.) Agroforestry systems are intensively managed to maintain their productive and protective functions through cultivation, fertilization, irrigation, pruning, and thinning. Example Agroforestry Systems Live fences: physical barrier to animals or fence posts for barbed wire Sequential systems (taungya): crops grown with teak trees in Laos -- for example, a forestry or agriculture ministry -- to implement and subsequently sustain an agroforestry project. The Agroforestry Executive Steering Committee is comprised of senior executives from the following eight USDA agencies: Fish can dive deep to the bottom of the pond to hibernate for the winter, but if the water freezes solid then they won’t survive. This comes with some additional challenges such as damage from foraging animals and increased problems with weeds. Bees make a fantastic addition to any agroforestry system. The study also considered an area reforested with ginko trees (G), and another traditional agricultural plot growing just wheat and peanut crops (WP). In 2004 the World Bank estimated that agroforestry practices were being used by 1.2 billion people. Farmers might make decisions based on first impressions without really looking at the research. Agroforestry systems are intensively managed to maintain their productive and protective functions through cultivation, fertilization, irrigation, pruning, and thinning. If your agroforest happens to include a pond or other closed water source, then it might be worth considering adding some fish like trout to the ecosystem. Agroforestry can occur at a variety of spatial scales (e.g., field or woodlot, farm, watershed) in different ecosystems and cultures. Taungya is an agroforestry system that comes from Burma. The alternatives to row planting are cluster planting or even wide spacing. Click on the hotspots to learn more about the synergies in this agroforestry system! This wide tree spacing with companion crops grown between is referred to as alley cropping. All it takes is a little patience while it grows. Large tree canopies block out some of the sunlight, which slows and prevents the growth of weeds. In conventional farming, fertilizer and nutrients usually need to be added to the soil every year. The autumn, leaves fall and create a fence for you example of agroforestry are used instead the... 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