How a Portuguese green oasis inspired a move to agroforestry

Mike Adams had never seen the point in growing trees in fields.

But visits to farms in southern Europe and Turkey proved transformational; he is now sold on their benefits for livestock, crop and soil health and is about to plant a second agroforestry plot on the family farm near Oakham, Rutland.

Mike’s Damascene moment followed another big decision for Wing Hall Farm, where he lives with his wife, Zia, and their three young children; he converted to organic production.

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The main driver for this was to cut costs in the arable operation.

“[As a new entrant to farming,] you don’t get the best ground, and we were losing money,” he says.

At about the same time, the National Sheep Association (NSA) was looking for farmers to join E-Organic Erasmus, an EU-funded, Turkish-led research project whose aim was to share good practice in livestock farming.

As the UK partner in the project, NSA recruited two farmer members – one of them Mike – to visit farms in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Turkey.

Mike Adams © MAG/Judith Tooth

Climate concerns

With few organic farmers around Oakham to help him through the conversion period, Mike was keen to learn.

He admits his most pressing concern at the time was how to manage weeds in his arable crops; instead, the three study trips focused on climate change and how farms could adapt to droughts, floods and temperature extremes, particularly by using trees.

He was fascinated.

“I hadn’t really thought about that before, and it was a real eye-opener,” he says.

“Zia calls them my ‘sheep holidays’, but they completely changed and inspired me.”

The first visit, to Conya, in central Turkey, was a wake-up call.

“It was massive, bare, flat and dusty, with skinny sheep,” he says.

“I got the sense that the government did research and told farmers what to do – like here in the 1960s.

“Their big claim was that they’d managed to breed a wheat variety that yielded 250kg/ha under drought conditions. That’s how they were dealing with drought.

“We could see [that] what soil was left was blowing away, but they said planting trees would be too expensive, and that it was too late.

“I knew then that we couldn’t be in a position where we were too late as well.”

Inspiration

Montado Freixo do Meio, a mixed organic farm an hour east of Lisbon, Portugal, could not have provided a starker contrast: it was, Mike says, “a green oasis”.

The 600ha (1,480-acre) farm produces 300 different products – from meat, fruit and vegetables, to vines, olives and cork – and employs 30 people.

“This was Portugal, dry and hot, and first I thought, what’s the relevance to me? But it gets dry and hot at home too.

“This farm dispelled the idea that trees suck all the water from the ground, and nothing can grow underneath them,” he explains.

© MAG/Judith Tooth

Farmer Alfredo Cunhal Sendim has created a social enterprise at Freixo do Meio focusing on healthy soils, using water responsibly and providing stable jobs for the local community, among other principles.

Mike says while Alfredo’s three brothers struggle with conventional cattle farming in dry and dusty conditions, his livestock benefit from rows of trees and bushes planted to provide shade, shelter and browsing, keep soils cool and grow a range of vegetables.

“We talked about how natural forests are the most productive thing there is, with plants at all heights,” he says, adding that Alfredo’s next project is to grow vines between the rows of trees and shrubs, to further increase productivity and diversity.

Agroforestry design

Inspired to build resilience using agroforestry at Wing Hall Farm, Mike contacted the Woodland Trust for help designing a 4ha (10-acre) plot.

The field is part of a seven-year cropping rotation of fertility-building clovers and herbal leys, spring cereals and legumes.

Winter cover crops, including turnips and brassicas, are grazed by sheep, while cattle are mainly on permanent pasture.

The Woodland Trust supplied trees and protection for the scheme, which is now almost a year old.

© MAG/Judith Tooth

Five alleys of trees, 24m apart, run north to south up the south-facing field – a total of 150 trees/ha.

Each alley is 3-4m wide: two are planted with cherries, apples and sweet chestnut; two are a mix of broad-leaves including oak (for future grandchildren), alder (for its nitrogen-fixing ability), willow (in boggy areas) and field maple; and one is down to hazel, for coppicing and wildlife.

“We’re on heavy ground – in the wet, it’s awful. Springs pop up and move around the place, and water comes thundering down the hill, full of soil.

“Then, in summer, it bakes dry like concrete. My hope is we’ll slow the flow of water, provide some shade to reduce the baking and windbreaks to slow the wind for crops and livestock,” says Mike.

The young trees are protected from sheep and cattle using electric fencing.

As well as providing shade and shelter once established, Mike is confident the scheme design will give him the push he needs to improve his grazing management.

“I know we should all be mob grazing, but when you’re in a rush, you chuck sheep in the field and plan to sort it out next week.

“Agroforestry forces you to do it as the [paddock] divisions are already there, job done,” he says.

Next steps

Planting of another 4ha (10 acres) is imminent, this time with two alleys (one with fruit trees, the other with walnut and silver birch), each 6m wide, as the field is too long and thin to accommodate the same design as the first plot.

In readiness, the alleys have been drilled with an IPM2 mix under the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) to improve wildlife value (paying £798/ha for the strips), and a Countryside Stewardship capital grant will contribute towards the cost of trees and stakes.

While both plots would qualify for current agroforestry payments under SFI, Mike is holding out for higher-tier options to come on stream before claiming.

He hopes these will be more suitable for the greater number of trees and shrubs he has planted in a hectare.

“Next year, we’ll use a small group of cows and calves to rotate around that, and then we’ll plant a further 4ha [10 acres] the following year – and that will be most of our owned arable land in agroforestry.

“Then we’ll look at a scheme on the permanent pasture [here], but the big challenge is what will be feasible on the rented land – if we were to plant fruit trees there, they wouldn’t even be cropping by the time the tenancy ends.”