News and Events

In late July, EURAF member and guiding light of the Woodland Forum, Stephen Briggs, had the pleasure of hosting a most distinguished visitor on his farm: His Royal Highness Charles, Prince of Wales.

We invite you, to publish your scientific results of your agroforestry experiments with alley cropping systems in the Special Issue "Alley Cropping—Agroforestry Systems".

What is "enhanced conditionality" in the new CAP?  How does it differ from the "cross-compliance" we all love? What are the ten Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (or maybe Commandments)? Why are Parliament, Agriculture Ministers and the Commission fighting tooth and nail about something as innocent sounding as "GAEC-9".

Agroforestry is represented quite prominently in German TV and radio recently. The selected statements could help to transport the topic further into the population and politics.

The French Agroforestry Development Plan, running from 2015 to 2020, was set up by the French Government and coordinated by the Department of Agriculture, to develop and manage all agroforestry systems within the national territory. On July 9^th, 2020, it has been evaluated.

On September 4^th 2020, deputy Peter Drenth has given the go-ahead to the Agroforestry Network Gelderland. It is a new provincial network like already is existing in the province of Brabant (100 farmers connected).

As trees are at the core of agroforestry systems and practices, European institutions must encourage and support any effort to invest in agroforestry strategies so that agroforestry can rise a leader role in providing agricultural solutions but also in improving the environment as well as human health and wellbeing.

As agroforestry is nothing without trees and agriculture… EURAF is empty without its members!

This is why we have decided to meet with Ilze SILAMIKELE from the Latvian Ministry of agriculture and Anna PANOZZO, PhD student in Crop Science at the University of Padua in Italy.

Will farmers lose their "area-based" payments if they plant agroforestry?

What about existing trees on farms - is the crown area of these deducted from payments?

What difference does it make if the trees are marked as "Landscape Features" in IACS/LPIS?

The “European Green Deal” promised us a new “New Forest Strategy” to replace the old "New Forest Strategy" from 2013. But let's be honest: these Strategies have done little to promote the uptake of agroforestry by Member States over the past 25 years. We have some idea is to ensure that this time will be different.

For agroforesters, Christmas came early last year!  On 11^th December, the European Green Deal was published. This overarching document guides European policy for the next 7 years and recognises the strategic importance of agroforestry! Read on to discover how that has permeated the top thinking at the Commission.

Forest grazing activities are usually recognized as historical former land use or new silvopastoral grazing experiments. This freshly published paper shows the importance of collaborating with holders of local and traditional knowledge in order to gain a better understanding of the effects of livestock grazing on vegetation in temperate forests in Hungary. 

Malyn Forestry College, located, in the northern part of Ukraine, is establishing various agroforestry plantations since the landmark International Scientific and Practical Conference "Forest Restoration and Agroforestry in Ukraine: Origins, Current Status and Prospects in the Anthropocene", which was held on November 7-9, 2019 in National University of Live and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv).

In Ireland, the new Government recognises agroforestry, amongst others, as an innovative way !

Agroforestry has a fantastic potential which is still not really understood by too many in the policy-making or agricultural communities. Here’s what we propose to do to change that!

Agroforestry plots had twice as many solitary bees and hoverflies, and in arable systems 2.4 times more bumblebees, than monocrop plots. 

The national delegates elected for the EURAF Executive Committee is Mette Kronborg and Sybille Kyed.

The purpose of the webinar was not just an introduction to Agroforestry but also a way to spread interest in the topic amongst our audience mainly made
of university students. 

Because of Corona a lot of students could not have their practical work period in companies. We took advantage of this; together with five students groups we have started investigations:

We decided to postpone the EURAF2020 conference. It was no longer conceivable to have it in May, in Italy. Cases of infected people would start appearing in other countries as well, some weeks later.