Planting seeds for future as agro-forestry sector grows

“Take a look at this one. Sure, she looks messy. But check under the hood: it’s got barely 8,000 years on the clock and is still going strong. This baby will feed the world for years to come. Best of all, it’ll do it while locking away lots of climate-warming greenhouse gases. What’s not to like? Come on, guv’, give her a ride! What do you say? You don’t trust her? Come on, I know she’s a bit straggly, what will all those trees, but trust me. This is the future of food production. Those trees are your salvation.”

No, I’m not trying to sell you a rusty old banger pierced by a vigorous sapling. However, as an agro-forester, I sometimes feel like I need all the second-hand-car- salesman grease I can get.

Consider the situation. You’re a farmer. Your grandfather painstakingly cleared your fields of stones and trees. Generations of labour created this perfect jewel of a field, where the golden tops of wheat are swaying in the breeze.

Beyond the wall, your pristine emerald-green pasture is dotted with the fluffy cottonballs of happy sheep. And suddenly this geezer turns up — that would be me — and tells you you’ve got to plant trees all over it? Yes. Trees are increasingly important to global food production.

Nothing can supply the package of benefits they provide, from the cash of timber sales to erosion control and soil quality improvements, as effectively as they can.

However, trees used to dot much of Europe’s farmland before it was transformed by agro- chemicals, machinery and cheap diesel. Trees protect crops and animals from extreme weather. They help rainwater percolate into the soil. They protect the land from erosion. The carbon their roots and litter add to the soil makes it more productive. Their branches provide a habitat for pest-controlling insects and birds. Their shade relieves livestock in the hot summer. And their products — timber, fuel, fruits, nuts — are valuable in their own right.

Modern science has transformed agro-forestry. Tree and crop combinations are selected to meet local conditions. Improved tree genetics and pruning techniques are combined with planting strategies that optimise tree-crop interactions.

Modern agro-forestry plots are designed with mechanisation in mind.

Agro-forestry may be the only scientific effort where the global south is ahead of the global north. In the Sahel, agro-forests already feed hundreds of thousands of farming families, even in drought years: they use nitrogen-fixing tree species to grow millet. In Indonesia, more rubber plantations are now being converted to complex rubber gardens than the other way around.

In west Africa, dozens of local fruits whose vitamin contents would shame an orange are being domesticated and replicated. In Zambia, commercial farmers are switching to conservation agriculture with trees. And your morning coffee and evening chocolate treat are made with ingredients increasingly grown under shade trees.

Europe is beginning to catch up. The most recent reform of the CAP recognised agro-forestry systems. Europe’s evolving 2030 climate strategy explicitly refers to agro-forestry as a key tool to fight climate change.

We’ll have to grow as much food over the next 40 years as we’ve grown over the past 8,000.

* Patrick Worms is senior science policy adviser with the World Agro-forestry Centre, Belgium