Agroforestry för svenska förhållanden 2024 - Flipbook - Page 8
1. INTRODUCTION
- MORE TREES IN FUTURE AGRICULTURE
Author: Linus Linse
The path towards a sustainable transformation of society must by necessity pass through the human imagination. We need to collectively imagine a world and
a society sustained by solutions other than those that
have carried us through the last century. Transition is
necessary in several of the sectors that form the very
basis of people’s way of life, and agriculture is no
exception. This is no easy task in a society that is becoming increasingly complex. Environmental threats,
the climate crisis, declining biodiversity, geopolitical
conflicts and global markets - these are just a few of
the factors that interact to increase the need for robust
food production systems to cope with uncertain and
changing future conditions.
An increasingly prominent view on the sustainable
Ovan och nedan: vete med stor genetisk
mångfald (“YQ”) i alléer med pil för energikonsumtion på gården, Wakelyns Agroforestry,
England. / Top and below: Composite Cross
populations wheat (“YQ”) grown in rows with
willow for on-farm energy consumption,
Wakelyns Agroforestry, UK.
Sid 7-8
transition of agriculture concerns multifunctionality.
That is, creating food production systems that are
not only able to meet producers’ profitability requirements and produce the nutrients and calories we
need, but also promote biodiversity, sequester carbon
and withstand extreme weather. These systems also
need to be adapted to work in different environments
and climates, or to be relevant for multiple production
types and scales.
Agroforestry is an umbrella term for farming systems
where trees and shrubs are mixed with annual or
perennial crops and/or livestock. Multifunctionality
lies at the core of the concept and although there are
many ways to apply agroforestry, a common denominator is to optimise the number of benefits in a limit-
