Agroforestry is one of the most effective and popular tools available ‘locally’ to improve agricultural productivity and conservation outcomes.

The Food Tank website reports on research by the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative (LPFN), which shows that investment in agroforestry has a higher number of positive outcomes than investments in other ‘integrated landscape initiatives’.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, nearly 60 per cent of integrated landscape initiatives invested directly in agroforestry. In Africa, this figure was over 50 per cent. There were also considerable indirect investments in agroforestry in each of these regions.

The popularity of agroforestry can be explained by its ability to address many challenges simultaneously and because agroforestry can be adapted to suit different ecological and socio-economic contexts.

Agroforestry can “accomplish a wide variety of outcomes, including biological, dietary, and income diversity, shade, and erosion control,” says the article. It also “often leads to a wide range of benefits for health, well-being, conservation and agriculture”.

The review by LPFN is part of a set of studies aimed at identifying integrated landscape initiatives around the world and determining how they were started, funded and operate.

Read the full story: Agroforestry: Effective, and Popular, in Integrated Landscapes