Workshops

Abstract

Land managers and policy makers need to re-appreciate where and when it is beneficial to integrate trees with farm systems. This workshop will examine a wide range of agroforestry practices which can improve farm profitability and provide environmental benefits for society. It will seek ways to maximise areas of synergy and to minimise or avoid areas of tension.

Description

Society requires land managers who can profitably provide food, fibre, and bio-energy in a socially and environmentally responsible way. In the context of increased demands on land use, this workshop will argue that segregating land use into either “agriculture” or “forestry” is self-defeating. For individual businesses, practices such as wood-pastures, grazed orchards, biofuel hedgerows, shelterbelts, woodland eggs, and woodland grazing can provide additional revenue and often welfare benefits. At a landscape level, appropriate integration of trees with farming can increase carbon storage, reduce runoff and nitrate leaching, and enhance biodiversity.

This workshop seeks presentations from potential speakers who are successfully integrating trees with farming. Locally, this is anticipated to include work by the Woodland Trust and Harper Adams on tree browsing on dairy farms and the use of shelter-belts. Within Europe, the workshop will seek presenters from research projects such as “AGFORWARD” which is promoting agroforestry and working with about 800 farmers and other stakeholders across 15 countries and 26 institutions across Europe (www.agforward.eu). We invite presentations on the technical, economic, social or policy aspects of agroforestry, and particular welcome presentations which emphasise practical applications.

Depending on the timing, we anticipate that we will arrange a field trip to see the local use of shelterbelts and/or the use of tree browse on dairy farms.

Workshop Processes

The initial proposal is for a standard workshop format of oral presentations, posters and discussion. The proposed span of each presentation is 10 minutes. We will encourage presentations which include both a researcher and a practitioner.

Papers

3.3 Consumer perceptions and behaviours regarding traditional pork products from agroforestry pigs in Veneto region (north-east Italy)

3.3 Nurturing agroforestry systems in temperate regions: an analysis of discourses for an enabling environment in Flanders, Belgium

3.3 Sugar beet yields in an alley cropping system during a dry summer

3.3 Alley coppice: an evaluation of integrating short rotation coppice and timber trees

3.3 Silvoarable agroforestry: an alternative approach to apple production?

3.3 Managing traditional hedges for biofuel

3.3 The value and potential of a ‘landscape-systems’ approach to agroforestry: insights from an Iberian context