Mixed-species versus monocultures in plantation forestry: Development, benefits, ecosystem services and perspectives for the future

Agroforestry is increasingly being recognized as a holistic food production system that can have numerous significant environmental, economic, and social benefits This growing recognition is paralleled in the USA by the budding interest in regenerative agriculture and motivation to certify regenerative practices Current efforts to develop a regenerative agriculture certification offer an opportunity to consider agroforestry’s role in furthering regenerative goals To understand this opportunity, we first examine how agroforestry practices can advance regenerative agriculture’s five core environmental concerns: soil fertility and health, water quality, biodiversity, ecosystem health, and carbon sequestration Next, we review a subset of certification programs, standards, guidelines, and associated scientific literature to understand existing efforts to standardize agroforestry We determine that development of an agroforestry standard alongside current efforts to certify regenerative agriculture offers an opportunity to leverage common goals and strengths of each Additionally, we determine that there is a lack of standards with measurable criteria available for agroforestry, particularly in temperate locations Lastly, we propose a framework and general, measurable criteria for an agroforestry standard that could potentially be implemented as a standalone standard or built into existing agriculture, forestry, or resource conservation certification programs

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Agroforestry standards for regenerative agriculture.

Agroforestry bridges the gap that often separates agriculture and forestry by building integrated systems that address both environmental and socio-economic objectives. Agroforestry can improve the resiliency of agricultural systems and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Existing research suggests that integrating trees on farms can prevent environmental degradation, improve agricultural productivity, increase carbon sequestration, generate cleaner water, and support healthy soil and healthy ecosystems while providing stable incomes and other benefits to human welfare. Although these claims are becoming more widely accepted as the body of agroforestry research increases, systematic understanding of the evidence supporting them remains lacking for high-income countries. This systematic map will address this research need by providing a tool for identifying and visualizing the existing evidence demonstrating the impacts of agroforestry practices and interventions on agricultural productivity, ecosystem services, and human well-being. The results will be useful for informing policy decisions and future research by making the evidence easily accessible and highlighting the gaps in knowledge as well as areas with enough evidence to conduct systematic reviews. This systematic map will identify, collect, display, and describe available evidence on the impacts of agroforestry on agricultural productivity, ecosystem services, and human well-being in high-income countries. The search strategy will cover 5 primary databases and 24 organizational websites using a pre-defined search string designed to capture studies relating agroforestry practices and interventions to outcomes in high-income countries. The searches will all be conducted in English. We will screen the identified studies for inclusion or exclusion in stages, first on title and abstract and then on full-text. We will collect data from studies included at the full-text stage to form the map and associated database. For inclusion, the study in question must assess the impacts of the deliberate promotion and/or actual integration of woody perennials (trees, shrubs, palms, bamboos, etc.) on the same land management unit as agricultural crops and/or animals.

/pdf/evidence-for-the-impacts-of-agroforestry-on-agricultural-2rt2dlc10z.pdf

Evidence for the impacts of agroforestry on agricultural productivity, ecosystem services, and human well-being in high-income countries: a systematic map protocol

Medicinal plants research in Asia continues to receive significant national and international attention, particularly concerning its multiple roles in poverty alleviation and health care support. However, scientific information on the institutional arrangements, the potentials of different medicinal plants production systems, and the utilization methods, remain highly fragmented. This incomprehensive information base shades the development of a comprehensive research agenda to improve the current body of knowledge, at least in the context of Asia. To address this impasse and propose future research perspectives, we systematically reviewed 247 journal articles, 15 institutional reports, and 28 book chapters. From the reviews, five key lessons are drawn: (i) Asian medicinal plant production systems demonstrate some dynamics, characterized by a gradual but continuous shift from wild gathering to cultivation, (ii) sub-regional variations exist with regards to the appreciation of medicinal plants potentials for traditional healing, modern healthcare, and livelihoods support, (iii) knowledge on the effect of multi-scale institutional arrangements (formal and informal) on medicinal plant management practices is fragmented, (iv) very few studies dwell on the challenges of medicinal plants commercialization, particularly with regards to the role of middlemen, boom–bust cycle, raw material readiness, and product quality, and (v) law enforcement, benefit and knowledge sharing, and research and development should be prioritized to serve the interest of medicinal plants production actors. To further extend the body of knowledge on medicinal plants in Asia, we advance the need for empirical investigations on the performance of medicinal plants production systems and their contribution to livelihoods in diverse institutional contexts.

Asian Medicinal Plants’ Production and Utilization Potentials: A Review

Annual row crops dominate agriculture around the world and have considerable negative environmental impacts, including significant greenhouse gas emissions. Transformative land-use solutions are necessary to mitigate climate change and restore critical ecosystem services. Alley cropping (AC)-the integration of trees with crops-is an agroforestry practice that has been studied as a transformative, multifunctional land-use solution. In the temperate zone, AC has strong potential for climate change mitigation through direct emissions reductions and increases in land-use efficiency via overyielding compared to trees and crops grown separately. In addition, AC provides climate change adaptation potential and ecological benefits by buffering alley crops to weather extremes, diversifying income to hedge financial risk, increasing biodiversity, reducing soil erosion, and improving nutrient- and water-use efficiency. The scope of temperate AC research and application has been largely limited to simple systems that combine one timber tree species with an annual grain. We propose two frontiers in temperate AC that expand this scope and could transform its climate-related benefits: (i) diversification via woody polyculture and (ii) expanded use of tree crops for food and fodder. While AC is ready now for implementation on marginal lands, we discuss key considerations that could enhance the scalability of the two proposed frontiers and catalyze widespread adoption.

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/gcb.13986

Frontiers in alley cropping: Transformative solutions for temperate agriculture

Agriculture faces the unprecedented task of feeding a world population of 9 billion people by 2050 while simultaneously avoiding harmful environmental and social effects. One effort to meet this challenge has been organic farming, with outcomes that are generally positive. However, a number of challenges remain. Organic yields lag behind those in conventional agriculture, and greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient leaching remain somewhat problematic. In this paper, we examine current organic and conventional agriculture systems and suggest that agroforestry, which is the intentional combination of trees and shrubs with crops or livestock, could be the next step in sustainable agriculture. By implementing systems that mimic nature’s functions, agroforestry has the potential to remain productive while supporting a range of ecosystem services. In this paper, we outline the common practices and products of agroforestry as well as beneficial environmental and social effects. We address barriers to agroforestry and explore potential options to alter policies and increase adoption by farmers. We conclude that agroforestry is one of the best land use strategies to contribute to food security while simultaneously limiting environmental degradation.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/6/574/pdf

Agroforestry—The Next Step in Sustainable and Resilient Agriculture

U.S. cities in 2016 continue to be haunted by the specter of isolated and disadvantaged African American ghettos. These spaces today exhibit deepened poverty and physical decay, struggling public schools, and heightened stigma. This current trend is exemplified in the likes of Cleveland’s Hough and Kinsman, Chicago’s sprawling South Side Black Belt, Los Angeles’s Watts, and New York’s Bedford Stuyvesant. Set in the shadows of spruced up downtowns and gentrified neighborhoods, these communities feel the ills of systematic neglect. While a new spit-and-polish uneven development provides shiny new “creative-class” residential and play zones, poor black communities are pushed to the margins as undeserving and culturally problematic. As I have suggested elsewhere, we can now think of a new kind of low-income terrain having formed in these cities, what I describe shortly as “glocal ghettos”.

Matthew Heron Wilson

Papers

Agroforestry—The Next Step in Sustainable and Resilient Agriculture

Reflection: Black Ghettoization and Marginalization – The Recent U.S. Experience