CSTAF AIS Agroforestry in the Subtropics

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What is agroforestry?

Agroforestry combines agriculture and forestry technologies to create more integrated, diverse, productive, profitable, healthy and sustainable land-use systems. The most important agroforestry practices are windbreaks, riparian forest buffers, alley cropping, silvopasture and forest farming. Agroforestry is a "social forestry" - its purpose is sustainable development. Practices are focused on meeting the economic, environmental and social needs of people on their private lands. At the farm level, agroforestry is a set of practices that provide strong economic and conservation incentives for landowner adoption. Incorporated into watersheds and landscapes, agroforestry practices help to attain community/society goals for more diverse, healthy and sustainable land-use systems.

Where does agroforestry apply?

Agroforestry applies to private agricultural and forest lands and communities. These are highly disturbed, human-dominated land-use systems. Targets include highly-erodible, flood-prone, economically marginal and environmentally sensitive lands. The typical situation is agricultural, where trees are added to create desired benefits. Our goal is to restore essential processes needed for ecosystem health and sustainability, rather than to restore natural ecosystems. Agroforestry provides strong incentives for adoption of conservation practices and alternative land uses, and supports a collaborative watershed analysis approach to management of landscapes containing mixed ownerships, vegetation types and land uses.

(Information on What is Agroforestry? and Where does Agroforestry Apply? courtesy of the National Agroforestry Center.)