Agroforestry för svenska förhållanden 2024 - Flipbook - Page 9
ed area. There are methods of cultivation on arable
land as well as in forests. In agroforestry, agriculture
often co-operates with forestry, blurring the distinction
between land ownership types into an integrated land
use. Instead of two separate fields, a more coherent,
productive nature conservation practice is formed.
In recent years, interest in agroforestry has increased
significantly. Primarily, it is the smaller systems, the
forest gardens, that have increased in popularity (see
“Agroforestry systems: An overview”). This is reflected
in the fact that the book “The forest garden: growing
edibles everywhere” by Philipp Weiss and Annevi
Sjöberg became Sweden’s best-selling gardening
book in 2018.
The agroforestry systems that are intended to be used
on a larger scale - at farm or landscape level - are still
relatively rare in Sweden (see “Swedish agroforestry
cases”). So far, pioneers and enthusiasts are leading
the development of agroforestry in Sweden. However,
for many farmers, there have so far been too many
barriers for these new methods to appear feasible
and attractive enough to be introduced on their own
Ovan: rostade matkastanjer. Nedan:
Självsådd äkta kastanj, Baskemölla. /
Top: roasted sweet chestnuts. Below:
Self-sown sweet chestnut, Baskemölla,
Sweden.
farms. Such barriers typically include a lack of easily
accessible knowledge and counselling, but also regulatory frameworks that are not adapted to other ways
of farming beyond those that have dominated the last
century. Fortunately, we are now seeing a development where policies and regulations are starting to be
revised and new advisory material being developed
to pave the way for new and sustainable farming
methods (see “Agroforestry in Swedish politics” and
“Counselling and education”).
With this brochure, we want to provide an in-depth
overview of what agroforestry is, its areas of use and
why we believe that more trees in the landscape are
an important piece of the puzzle in future food production systems. We also hope that this brochure
will be valuable to a variety of target groups. For this
reason, the brochure is divided into two parts. The
first part is designed as an introduction to agroforestry, where the reader quickly can get an idea of what
tree-based production systems are all about, while the
second part provides a more in-depth look at issues
related to policy, consultation and understanding the
economics of agroforestry systems.
