Greater diversification could help agriculture withstand climate, economic and geopolitical crises.

Researchers are discovering the benefits of combining forestry and agricultural activities.

‘Items in this section have limited availability due to supplier production issues,’ ‘Sorry, temporarily out of stock’ and ‘Sold out’ are all signs that became familiar as recent global upheavals exposed how precarious our food supply is.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to bare shelves in supermarkets as shipping routes were cut off. The war in Ukraine has affected the supply of essential grains.

But increased climate change stands to cause even greater disruption. Researchers say part of the solution to mitigating that risk is for farms to become more mixed through some combination of crop cultivation, livestock production and forestry, a move that would also make agriculture more sustainable.

For Dr Sara Burbi, assistant professor at Coventry University in the UK until December 2022 and now an independent researcher, COVID-19 was a wake-up call.

‘Suddenly, we experienced first-hand what happens when value chains are not resilient to shocks and what happens when globalisation, with all its intricacies, does not work anymore,’ she said. ‘We saw highly specialised farming systems fail when they over-relied on external inputs that they had no access to.’

Climate change, according to Burbi, could provide even bigger global shocks ranging from widespread crop failures to lower yields or damage from flooding. More sustainable agriculture is essential to ensure food supplies can withstand the impact of climate change and unexpected local, national and even global crises.

Il 19 settembre Arpav partecipa alla prima giornata di “Esperienze di fertilità del suolo e analisi dei terreni”, un’iniziativa formativa organizzata da Veneto Agricoltura nell’ambito del progetto AGROMIX. Il seminario è rivolto ai consulenti del settore agricolo che operano o intendono operare nella Misura 2 del Piano di Sviluppo Rurale “Servizi di consulenza, di sostituzione e di assistenza alla gestione delle aziende agricole”.

La giornata si focalizza sulle caratteristiche dei suoli in funzione della loro storia pedologica, sulla loro valutazione e valorizzazione agronomica, sull’interpretazione e utilizzo dei dati analitici e dell’indice di qualità biologica del suolo (QBS-ar). È prevista anche una parte pratica in campo con la descrizione di un profilo di suolo. La giornata è ospitata dall’azienda agricola “Al Confin” di Camisano Vicentino (Vi).

Il progetto AGROMIX, in cui il seminario rientra, riunisce agricoltori, ricercatori e responsabili politici per esplorare soluzioni agro-ecologiche per un uso più resiliente del suolo in Europa, attraverso lo sviluppo di pratiche rigenerative.

Il programma dettagliato su Veneto Agricoltura: https://bit.ly/3Q56Lxn

Mixed agriculture and agroforestry could help the transition to more climate-proof ways of farming. But how can farmers implement this effectively? Researchers at Wageningen University & Research and their European colleagues are letting farmers all over Europe experiment with climate-smart combinations of livestock, trees and crops.

International climate change action is increasing, but policy-makers have yet to address a core challenge: land use. Agriculture is a leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions, and with increasing food insecurity and a rapidly growing global population, our response to these challenges must begin in the field. This is the inspiration behind the AGROMIX project – Agroforestry (AGRO-) and mixed farming (-MIX) – which has the ambition of ‘transforming landscapes’ by delivering new research on how these land use systems work, designing models for farmers to implement these practices, and offering policy recommendations for decision makers to support these practices. How will this four-year pan-European project achieve its ambitious goals, whilst using socially-innovative and high-tech participatory approaches?

Can agroforestry and mixed farming systems provide whole ecosystem approaches to sustainable and resilient landscape management? Dr Sara Burbi, Assistant Professor at Coventry University explores.

Vandaag stelden de partners van het Proefplatform Agro-ecologie Hansbeke (PPAE Hansbeke) voor het eerst de resultaten voor van een tiental bijzondere landbouwexperimenten. De proefopstellingen dienen om te testen hoe landbouw nog duurzamer kan, zodat boeren bijdragen aan een beter milieu en er tegelijk winst uit kunnen halen.

Coventry University’s Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) has been awarded €7 million in research funding to carry out an international project on agroforestry and mixed farming within the European Union (EU)’s HoA couple of relatively new Horizon 2020 projects are now up and running and paving the way for more resilient, efficient and sustainable agriculture in Europe. As its name suggests, the MIXED project is exploring different types of mixed agricultural systems, such as agroforestry, in the belief that these approaches offer many benefits. Meanwhile, AGROMIX is bringing together researchers, farmers and policymakers to explore the transition towards resilient farming, efficient land use, and sustainable agricultural value chains in Europe.

November 2020 saw the launch of AGROMIX - an EU-funded research project exploring mixed farming and agroforestry as alternative approaches for land management and agriculture. The project is coordinated by Coventry University (UK) and is led by 28 partners from 14 European countries, including universities, research centres, government agencies, and on-the ground farms and farming associations. With a budget of 6.9 million euros the project’s goal is to drive the transition towards more resilient farming, efficient land use, and sustainable agricultural value chains in Europe.

Coventry University’s Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) has been awarded €7 million in research funding to carry out an international project on agroforestry and mixed farming within the European Union (EU)’s Horizon 2020 programme.