Session 3: Case Studies of Agroforestry Systems Around the World

Whitehall Farm, Peterborough, England

Apart from traditional farming systems, agroforestry is also applied in the modern industrialised farming industry. Whitehall Farm applied agroforestry to help alleviate the effects of soil erosion and create additional income at the same time.

Whitehall Farm is a 100-hectare farm in eastern England, practising organic farming (Knight, 2019). The soil type of the farm is peat soil with a high organic matter content of 23% and the main crops are cereals (Agricology, n.d.). A major challenge at the site is the soil erosion caused by the winds. The annual rate of soil loss is around 2.1cm (Burgess, 2017).

 

Challenges

To tackle the problem of soil erosion, the farm owner, Stephen Briggs, started an agroforestry scheme on 52 hectares of the farm in 2009 (Raskin & Osborn, 2019). Apple trees were planted in rows to act as windbreaks which lower the wind speed and generate income at the same time. However, the establishment of the agroforestry system is not without challenges.

Land tenure in UK is usually short term (3-5 years) (Knight, 2019), and the apple trees only come into full production after 5 years. Stephen is fortunate enough to be able to negotiate a 15-year farm tenancy so that they could have a viable economic return for their agroforestry system.

The lack of experience in managing trees is also a problem for the farmers, especially in the establishment phase of the system. The apple trees need bees for pollination and fruit production, so a 3-meter band of flowers and legumes intentionally created underneath the apple trees to support the bees (Smith, Crossland, & Wolfe, 2016). New management practices and new machines are needed to manage the weeds in the band.

The harvest and storage of apple also posed a challenge to the farm operation which originally only focus on cereals production. A total of 13 different varieties of apples are planted on the farm to meet the needs of fruiting and juicing. Late ripening varieties were chosen to allow a compatible harvesting period with the cereal crops (Knight, 2019). A farm shop was also set up for retail sales of apple products and juice which is more valuable. 

A short video about the farm, produced by the Woodland Trust could be viewed here: 

 

 

Olhos D’Água Farm, Bahia, Brazil 

Agroforestry does not only increase agricultural production for humans, it could also be used as a tool to restore degraded land for nature.

Olhos D’Água Farm is a site of around 480 hectares in an area in Bahia, Brazil. It is one of the world’s well-known cases of regenerative agriculture that successfully transformed a degraded area into a generative agroforestry system. Its founder Ernst Götsch, a Swiss researcher and farmer, started managing the farm in 1982 (Pasini, 2019). Before the start of the farm, the area was mainly made up of abandoned pastures, and the soil was poor and acidic (Götsch, 2019).

Götsch adopted a system that was known as successional agroforestry. The crop species are planted together with other species to simulate the natural habitat in which the crop species naturally occur. The sequence of planting also imitates natural succession, with pioneer species introduced first to improve the soil in the initial stage. Secondary forest species and later on primary forest species are planted after that. The crop species are planted in the respective time according to their natural cycles. Finally, the whole system is pruned regularly to stimulate growth and control access to light and space. The pruning could be up to 95% every year for some species (Young, 2017). The pruned branches are placed on the ground to cover the soil and act as mulch.

This method helped regenerate the poor soil of the farm in a few years and no pesticides or herbicides were used in the process. The whole area was reforested and the key crop was cocoa. Apart from the soil, the water availability also improved with more frequent rainfall and reactivated springs, transforming the microclimate of the region. 

The whole process was published in a paper named “Break-through in Agriculture” by Ernst Götsch in 1994 and became widely known. In 2015, the story of Ernst Götsch and his farm was made into a short film “Life in Syntropy” by Agenda Götsch and was presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP21 – Paris. Many farmers around the world since then learned from his experience and started practising successional agroforestry.

 

Challenges

Götsch‘s system seems perfect but the adoption of the system elsewhere, especially on a large scale, is very challenging (Weiss, 2020).

The selection of local species and the crop associated with the system is specific to the location of the farm. It takes time, knowledge and a lot of trials to identify the best combination. The lack of knowledgeable and skilled farm consultants and workers is still a limiting factor despite more and more promotional programmes and trainings are available. One reason is that it takes time for the farmer to accept the method, which seems counter-intuitive to their conventional method until they see the benefits (FAO, 2019b).

Machine integration is another challenge to adopt this agroforestry system on a large scale. Due to the differences in the farm structure and the purpose of the machine comparing to conventional commercial farms, existing machines in the market could not fulfil the need of these complex agroforestry systems. Farmers have to modify existing machines or even build their own machines (Weiss, 2020) so that they can manage bigger farms.

The nature of the agroforestry system diversifies the farm’s production but each crop tend to be in relatively lower quantities. The harvesting of different types of crops and the difference in harvesting time require more complex farm management. 

The short film could be viewed below: 

 

Café Apuí Agroflorestal, Apuí, Brazil

After some 20 years of treeless plots and full sunlight planting, coffee farmers in Brazil’s Amazonas state of Apuí started abandoning their coffee plantations due to the drop in yield caused by soil degradation. With the help of the Institute for Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Amazon (Idesam), the Café Apui Agroflorestal project resumed growing of coffee through the agroforestry method on the once-abandoned plantation in 2012.

The coffee farmers each received funding and seedlings of native plants to rehabilitate one hectare of the coffee plantation. Apart from coffee, trees that provide timber, fruit and nuts were also grown in the plantation to diversify the source of income for the farmers.

Today, there are 30 families working on 50 hectares of agroforestry coffee plantation. The average coffee harvest jumped from 8 bags per hectare to 15 bags per hectare. The livelihoods of coffee farmers have improved and the forests in Amazon are saved from further deforestation for cattle pastures.

With the initial success and support from WWF, WeForest and reNature, the project now aims to expand the family farmers base to 200. 

 

Challenges

One major challenge to the agroforestry system with coffee is that the sunlight requirement of coffee plant varies at different time of the year (Zanon, 2021). The farmer has to regulate the amount of sunlight received by the coffee plants by conscious design of the system with consideration on the landscape elements and the companion species chosen. This requires local knowledge and experience which is an obstacle to the wider adoption of the agroforestry system. 

 

 

 

References:

Agricology. (n.d.). Farmer Profiles. Retrieved from Agricology: https://www.agricology.co.uk/field/farmer-profiles/stephen-briggs

Burgess, P. (2017). Agroforestry in the UK. Quarterly Journal of Forestry, 114.

FAO. (2019a). About agroforestry. Retrieved from Agroforestry: http://www.fao.org/forestry/agroforestry/en/

FAO. (2019b). Syntropic farming: FAO and IIAM train farmers and extension workers in the model of agricultural production that aims to mitigate the effects of climate change. Retrieved from FAO in Mozambique: http://www.fao.org/mozambique/news/detail-events/en/c/1178343/

Götsch, E. (2019). Break-Through in Agriculture. Retrieved from Agenda Götsch: https://cepeas.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/2-Break-Through-in-Agriculture.pdf

Knight, I. (2019, January). Whitehall Farm: An Innovative silvoarable orchard system in the UK. Retrieved from Agroforestry Innovation Networks: http://www.eurafagroforestry.eu/afinet/rains/agroforestry-action/whitehall_farm_an_innovative_silvoarable_orchard_system_in_the_UK

Pasini, F. (2019). Ernst Götsch. Retrieved from Agenda Götsch: https://agendagotsch.com/en/ernst-gotsch/

Raskin, B., & Osborn, S. (2019). The Agroforestry Handbook: Agroforestry for the UK. Bristol: Soil Association Limited.

Smith, J., Crossland, E., & Wolfe, M. (2016). Silvoarable agroforestry: an alternative approach to apple production? 12th European International Farming Systems Association (IFSA) Symposium, Social and technological transformation of farming systems: Diverging and converging pathways (pp. 1-13). Newport: International Farming Systems Association (IFSA).

Young, K. J. (2017). Mimicking Nature: A Review of Successional Agroforestry Systems as an Analogue to Natural Regeneration of Secondary Forest Stands. In F. Montagnini, Integrating landscapes: Agroforestry for biodiversity conservation and food sovereignty (pp. 179-209). Cham: Springer.

Weiss, S. (2020, July 30). In syntropic agriculture, farmers stop fighting nature and learn to embrace it. Retrieved from Mongabay: https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/in-syntropic-agriculture-farmers-stop-fighting-nature-and-learn-to-embrace-it/

Zanon, S. (2021). Agroforestry-grown coffee gives Amazon farmers a sustainable alternative. Retrieved from Mongabay: https://news.mongabay.com/2021/02/agroforestry-grown-coffee-gives-amazon-farmers-a-sustainable-alternative/

 

Continue to “Session 4: Application of Agroforestry in Hong Kong – Case of Lai Chi Wo”