Agroforestry presents lots of opportunities for the organic grower: to grow new fruit and nut crops to sell; to produce wood and wood chip to use; to provide shelter and reduce flooding; and to provide habitat for other creatures.

In this webinar, we hear from experienced growers about the practical considerations, opportunities and pitfalls of agroforestry in organic horticulture.

Ben Raskin is head of horticulture and agroforestry at the Soil Association, a director of the Organic Growers Alliance, and an experienced grower who is currently establishing an agroforestry system at Eastbrook farm in Wiltshire.

John Tucker is director of woodland outreach at the Woodland Trust. John talks us through how to get started in agroforestry and what you should consider when deciding how to incorporate trees, from analysing your site and exploring your objectives, through to choosing species and getting trees in the ground.

Andy Dibben is head grower at Abbey Home Farm in Cirencester. He joins us to talk us through his experience of incorporating trees into the site and to share his learning and advice.

This webinar is a partnership between the CSA Network UK, the Seed Sovereignty Programme run by the Gaia Foundation, the Landworkers’ Alliance, and the Organic Growers Alliance and forms part of a webinar series funded by Farming the Future. Recorded on 24 February 2021.

An Agroforestry system is much more than a tree plantation. A true agroforestry system needs to "bio mimic" a natural forest and include multiple species and families of trees, ground cover plants, vines, and shrubs.

The diversity is the system's key to resilience. Multiple heights of trees create more homes for more beneficial wildlife. An upper canopy is crucial for shade and to protect the soil from hard rainfall--especially the fragile soils of the neotropics.

In my "Syntropic Agroforestry" video I talked about the importance of starting the system with hardy pioneer plants. In this video, I address the question: "What comes after pioneers?"

Planning and executing a plan to get a return on the land in addition to subsistence foods is also important. Valuable crops like cacao, cardamom, black pepper, and medicinal fungi command high prices on the world market. Agroforestry is a real path forward to provide food and important ecological services like carbon sequestration. It's up to us to show that it CAN be done.

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⁣Agroforestry - How it Works