NAC | Working Trees for Agriculture

Agroforestry

Working Trees for Agriculture

Imagine for a moment a farm product that could control wind erosion, increase crop yields and absorb water-polluting runoff. What if it could also protect livestock from cold winter winds and summer heat, improve weight gain, and reduce energy costs? A product that provides additional sources of income for farmers and at the same time helps to create a more diverse and healthy countryside, with clean water and more abundant wildlife and aquatic plants and animals. Most of us would rush out to purchase it!

Of course, no such product exists. However, there is an innovative concept that has contributed its share to doing these very things. It's agroforestry - combining agriculture and forestry. Putting trees to work for agriculture. Agroforestry's working trees help make agricultural systems more healthy and sustainable by protecting crops and livestock, conserving natural resources, improving human environments and providing new sources of income.

Putting trees to work in conservation and production systems for farms, ranches and communities means planting the right trees in the right places, at the right time, and in the correct design to achieve desired benefits. With agroforestry practices incorporated, an agricultural countryside might include windbreaks in fields, riparian buffer strips along waterways, wooded pastures, alley cropping with annual crops and high-value hardwood trees, and "forest farming" operations where high-value specialty crops (like herbs, medicinal plants, or mushrooms) are grown under the protection of a tree canopy.

Agroforestry can be a win-win situation for landowners and everyone who cares about the health of our land and water. It provides opportunities to balance productivity and profitability with environmental stewardship, and pass on healthy and sustainable agricultural systems to future generations.

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Last updated 12.12.2000.
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