Mongabay article about forest-based agroforestry study

Bring the forest to the farm or the farm to the forest? Agroforestry faces a dichotomy

Key ideas from the Mongabay article from Marlowe Starling

23 June 2025, British Columbia

• A new comment article published in Nature Climate Change makes the case for more forest-based agroforestry — integrating crops into existing forests — as an underutilized climate and livelihood solution.

• The authors find that there’s a noticeable lack of funding for forest-based methods compared to field-based agroforestry, in which trees are added to pasture and croplands, which they say has led to missed opportunities for carbon storage and biodiversity.

• A lack of consensus and understanding on how to define agroforestry is another factor in the misalignment of intentions and outcomes of agroforestry as a climate solution.

• The authors call on policymakers and scientists to fund and study forest-based agroforestry methods with more rigor, especially in places where people depend on rural livelihoods such as agriculture.

Read the article here:

https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/bring-the-forest-to-the-farm-or-the-farm-to-the-forest-agroforestry-faces-a-dichotomy/

Nuu-chah-nulth forest garden in Nuchatlaht Hahoulthi, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, with Pacific crabapple (Malus fusca), salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis), salal (Gaultheria shallon), and other edible, medicinal and handicraft plant species. These Indigenous forest garden systems have been managed over substantial periods of time through long-distance transplanting of plant material, controlled burning, weeding, fertilizing, coppicing and pruning. Image by Chelsey Geralda Armstrong.