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Agroforestry Benefits Future Farming
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 05/23/2023

Agroforestry practices have the potential to mitigate adverse effects of climate change because they can sequester between 2 and 8 tons of carbon per acre per year in plant biomass and soil. And tens of millions of U.S. farmland acres are ripe for agroforestry practices, according to The Nature Conservancy.

The Nature Conservancy and several organizations are partnering to create in the next five years at least 30,000 acres of new agroforestry plantings with the help of farmers. In Wisconsin and other upper Midwestern states, The Nature Conservancy and the Savanna Institute will provide free technical assistance and outreach to farmers. The Savanna Institute has headquarters in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and Champaign, Illinois.

Eligible farmers will be provided incentives to overcome barriers to agroforestry practices and to implement alley cropping, windbreaks and-or silvopasture. The incentives will cover more than half of a farmer’s cost of implementation, said Kris Johnson, director of agriculture for The Nature Conservancy in North America.

“In the long run the program only makes sense if it makes sense for the farmers,” he said.

More details, including those on incentives, will be forthcoming. The program is just beginning and the partners are currently negotiating with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on a final agreement, Johnson said. The “Expanding Agroforestry Production and Markets for Producer Profitability and Climate Stabilization” project is being funded through the USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities.

The USDA in September 2022 awarded $60 million to The Nature Conservancy and its partners to advance agroforestry in 29 states. Of the total dollar amount, $40 million is earmarked for direct incentive payments to farmers and the creation of a national network of demonstration farms. The project is one of 70 awards the USDA is funding through the “Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry Partnership Initiative.”

The agroforestry-project partners will work directly with manufacturers and retailers to connect potential buyers with farmers. The goal is to increase demand for agroforestry products such as nuts, fruits, timber and livestock raised in silvopasture settings, Johnson said. The partners will help identify clusters where farmers producing hazelnuts or chestnuts, for example, could capitalize on economies of scale.

“This is an exciting part of the project,” he said. “There are compelling longer-term economics even without the public program.”

Technical service provided

The Savanna Institute will offer technical-service providers. They’ll share with participating farmers their knowledge and research about agroforestry, silvopasture, alley cropping and windbreaks. They can help determine what practices may work best in a farmer’s particular operation as well as help design and implement an agroforestry program. They also can recommend what tree crops would best meet a farmer’s particular goals and geography, said Fred Iutzi, director of research and commercialization for the Savanna Institute.

During the five-year project the project’s partners will collect, measure and quantify the carbon benefits of the agroforestry products created. The project also will focus on new methods for quantifying carbon sequestration in agroforestry systems. Data and carbon rights will be owned by the landowners, The Nature Conservancy stated.

The USDA program requires that climate benefits from projects stay tied to the commodities produced. So farmers enrolled in the program will not be eligible to sell carbon offsets to buyers outside of the supply chain, such as airlines or energy companies. But participating farmers could still see additional revenue for carbon if companies buying the commodities – such as crops, milk and tree nuts – want to co-invest.

Many food and agricultural companies have made public commitments to reduce the climate footprint of their own supply chains, known as their “Scope 3” emissions. For example the U.S. dairy industry has set a “net zero” goal. So dairy companies have an incentive to potentially co-invest in tree planting on dairy farms to sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from the farms where they source milk – and ultimately contribute to their net-zero climate goals.





Source: agupdate.com


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