Aim:

Investigating the opportunities and challenges for growing trees alongside crop and livestock farming

Project Description

We looked at how we can help a wider and more rapid adoption of agroforestry to benefit rural communities and economies and co-design the future with landowners.

Agriculture uses more than 70% of the land in the UK and is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. The sector should be engaged with solutions to climate change, including tree planting. 

What are the opportunities and barriers to growing trees alongside crops and livestock? How can we maintain land use for food production while delivering key ecosystem services and improving rural livelihoods? 

What we discovered...

  • Relationships between farming priorities, government incentives, environmental services and societal attitudes are complicated.
  • The most significant barriers to adopting agroforestry are low expected financial returns (excluding subsidies) and uncertainty over long-term investment and potential policy changes. Farmers also expressed a lack of trust in government schemes due to inconsistent policies and limited institutional support.
  • Trees provide shade for livestock and environmental benefits such as improved soil health and biodiversity. However, most farmers prioritise delivering food security over environmental benefits and ecosystems services.
  • While citizens are generally positive towards trees and expanding tree planting, there are concerns about changes to cultural ecosystem services provided by landscapes and monocultures.
  • Public awareness about the benefits of agroforestry is generally low. Expanding awareness could bring consumer preferences closer to environmental goals, promoting agroforestry as a dual-benefit approach for food security and ecosystem health.

Project Lead(s)

Prof Lynn Frewer, Newcastle University

Project Website

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/nes/our-research/earthsci/earth-ocean-planetary-sciences/agroforestry-futures/