Barriers remain for agroforestry despite growing interest

Uncertainty about payment incentives and the need for more advice and guidance is stalling a wider uptake of agroforestry by UK farmers, despite a growing interest in the agri-environmental practice.

Merging trees and agriculture on the same piece of land can help farmers increase biodiversity, reduce soil erosion and pollution, and provide protection for crops and livestock. Other benefits include the opportunity to create new sources of income.

See also: Landscape and Local Nature Recovery: What farmers need to know

But before they commit, farmers interested in agroforestry want to know how the government’s Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme will support and reward them.

Speaking at the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC), Andy Dibben, who manages silvohorticulture at Abby Home Farm, near Cirencester in Gloucestershire, said: “People don’t want to plant now if they think they might be able to get paid for planting in two or three years’ time.

“There is also uncertainty about how the grants are going to meet the agroforestry planting.

“Are we going to get paid by the area of agroforestry, or by the number of trees? What proportion of the cost is going to get covered? Is it for protection, labour, mulching or maintenance of trees?

“This unknowing might well be leading to a delay [of farmer take up], which should be a good opportunity to crack on with the design process.”

Agroforestry projects

To raise awareness, a two-and-a-half-year scheme – the Agroforestry ELM Test project – has recently been launched by the Organic Research Centre, Woodland Trust, Soil Association and Abacus Agriculture.

It will hold regional meetings to discuss six types of agroforestry project – lowland silvoarable, lowland silvohorticulture, lowland silvopastoral, upland silvopastoral, woodland grazing, and silvopoultry.

The project will gather evidence and opinions from a network of 30 farms in six clusters representing the different types of agroforestry.

Helen Chesshire, leading farming advocate at the Woodland Trust, told the ORFC: “It is absolutely essential we do get support through both the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and the Local Nature Recovery for farmers to take agroforestry forward.

“It is really refreshing to see that when Defra publish information on ELM, they do say they want to support agroforestry.

“They are talking about designing a pilot agroforestry standard for the Sustainable Farming Incentive component, but I have real concerns they want SFI to be advice free, or have the government not funding it, so that is potentially a barrier.”

Including agroforestry in Local Nature Recovery would facilitate larger scale wood pasture parkland-type activities, and allow farmers to collaborate together.