KEEPING UP WITH AGRICULTURAL TRENDS

A month ago we share info with a link for a deeper look about Biodynamic Farming. Our girl, Elizabeth, has published again, this time about Agroforestry. It’s not a word we hear much in the this area though some agroforestry concepts have been utilized here for many years. We hope your take away from this section is a deeper appreciation of how different aspects of farming, and in this case trees, can work together for the greatest good of all. Credit for what follows goes to Elizabeth Buttram at Insteading.Com. If you read the article in its entirely you should recognize some practices common in our area. .

What Is Agroforestry?
According to the Peace Corps, agroforestry is a land use agricultural system that integrates trees, crops, and animals on the same piece of land in order to get higher productivity, greater returns, and more social benefits on a sustained basis.
To simplify, agroforestry is a mixture of trees, crops, and animals on the same parcel of land. It’s optional for either crops or livestock (or both) to be utilized while trees are a necessity for it to be considered agroforestry. Trees generally provide more than one service including shelter, shade, soil conservation/erosion prevention, green manure, or livestock fodder.

Why Agroforestry?
The “why” part of doing agroforestry can be understood in the latter section of the Peace Corps definition: Integrating trees/crops/animals on the same piece of land helps boost productivity by yielding multiple outputs that would ordinarily be produced on separate pieces of land.
You can receive greater returns per square foot this way and agroforestry may also increase social benefits by improving economic livelihood. If selling crops or animals is the goal, it creates higher crop diversity, and improves environmental habitat through increased land use diversity.

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!