Online Webinar | 11 AM, 9 October 2024
Agroforestry is recognized as a crucial strategy for both mitigating and adapting to climate change, with the potential to significantly enhance the resilience of farming systems in Scotland.
However, despite its promise, agroforestry coverage remains limited in both Scotland and the broader UK. This limited adoption is due to a combination of socio-economic factors and technical knowledge gaps, ranging from policy challenges to expertise in selecting appropriate tree species and designing planting schemes for specific outcomes and environmental conditions.
The FARM TREE research team at the University of Aberdeen has been investigating the barriers and opportunities for expanding agroforestry in Scotland. They have also been modelling various agroforestry scenarios to optimize outcomes for farmers under diverse conditions. In this webinar, we will present our socio-economic findings alongside our modelling results. The socio-economic segment of the presentation will address the obstacles to increasing agroforestry in Scotland. The environmental modelling segment will introduce the FARM TREE Opportunity Mapping webtool, designed to assist decision-makers in Scotland who are considering integrating trees into farmlands. This webtool combines multiple GIS layers derived from satellite data and our in-house numerical model to generate an opportunity score for each 1km square tile in Scotland.
PRESENTERS
Dr Albert Mvula is an interdisciplinary social-ecological researcher with expertise in sustainable agricultural systems, catchment, rural policy, and land resources management. He has been working on the socio-economic part of the Farm Tree project at the University of Aberdeen, exploring barriers and opportunities to increasing agroforestry in Scotland.
Dr Salim Goudarzi is an environmental modelling expert who builds and applies numerical models to solving environmental challenges. He has been working on the environmental modelling segment of the Farm Tree project to design optimal agroforestry scenarios.