Agroforestry för svenska förhållanden 2024 - Flipbook - Page 14
2. WHAT DOES AGROFORESTRY ADD
TO AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY?
Author: Linus Linse
What does agroforestry add to agriculture and forestry? The short answer is: plenty! Agroforestry systems
can produce everything from cereals, fruits, vegetables, herbs, fodder, animal products, to medicinal
who builds windbreaks to protect exposed fields from
strong winds also attracts more insects, improves soil
health and, depending on the trees and shrubs used,
can expand and diversify their production. Below are
Wakelyns Agroforestry, Suffolk,England.
Wakelyns Agroforestry, England.
plants, flowers, woody plants for building materials,
firewood, biofuel or sap, not to mention a whole
range of important ecosystem services [1, 2, 3].
However, a more nuanced answer would begin - as it
often does - with ‘it depends’. Agroforestry represents
a varied toolbox and it is very much the individual
farmer’s objectives and the way they have designed
their farm that determines what functions the system
generates. But perhaps the most crucial aspect of
what makes agroforestry methods useful tools for
future agriculture are their ability to generate and
combine a variety of benefits both below and above
ground - and for the farmer as well [4]. The farmer
Sid 13-14
some of the key effects and potential of agroforestry,
and the chapter ”Swedish agroforestry cases” provides examples of how farmers are benefiting from
and responding to these effects.
Below-ground effects of establishing agroforestry
Anyone who has tried to dig a garden plot near large
trees knows that roots can be quite challenging to deal
with. But in well-planned agroforestry systems, tree
roots provide a resource for the rest of the system. For
example, some tree species are able to draw water up
to more shallow soil levels where it becomes available
