Improving UK agroforestry: A participatory approach to identifying, developing and field-testing innovations

As complex systems, agroforestry systems are more knowledge-intensive than other agricultural systems; site-specific adaptations of practices are crucial to success. Farmer education and experimentation leading to system modification plays an important role in agroforestry development. Working with silvoarable and silvopoultry farmers in the UK, we aimed to identify key challenges and potential innovations to improve their systems. Increased complexity of the systems was identified as having both positive (e.g. safety through diversity) and negative (e.g. need for more planning and labour) implications for production and management. Managing the interactions among trees, crops, pasture and livestock was also identified as a key challenge by both groups. Innovations in design and management of the systems included trialling of agroforestry-adapted cereals and grass swards on research farms while two silvoarable farmers instigated their own trials of new tree understorey crops. This research contributes to the Organic 3.0 aim of enabling widespread uptake of truly sustainable farming systems by involving producers in innovation processes to make their systems better.