On farm monitoring light of opportunities and limitations of agroforestry

• Author(s): Herzog, F. ; Jager, M.
• Date: 2014
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/7285
• Origin: Repositório da UTL
• Subject(s): agroforestry
• Document Type: Conference Object
• Language: English

Description

Poster Agroforestry systems which combine woody plants with arable crops and/or grassland provide ecological as well as economic benefits. Agroforestry systems are characterised by higher overall productivity and at the same time they are expected to provide improved resource conservation and contribute to enhanced biodiversity. Whether this potential can be effectively realised and whether or not it is offset by possible drawbacks such as more complicated farm management, long term tying-up of land etc. can only be tested using empirical data. For this purpose, a monitoring tool was developed containing indicators relating to productivity, labour costs, economic viability, management strategies, environmental factors and the perception of those working the land (Kuster et al. 2012). An initial survey was conducted on existing plots of land belonging to three farms and has been repeated annually. The approach will be presented and first experiences from its application will be summarized.