In Bangladesh, a unique form of 3-dimensional agroforestry is producing more than 25 times the income of rice and forming a canopy that provides a home for endangered plants and animals.

A blog post on the website of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) ahead of the IUFRO World Congress in October 2014 explains how Bangladesh has lost more than 90 per cent of its forests and is home to more than 150 million people. Growing enough food to feed this population is hard enough and climate change is expected to make it even more difficult with rising sea levels impacting heavily on agricultural land.

The agroforestry system in the Alutilla Valley of Bangladesh involves planting timber trees – usually acacia – that can be harvest after 10 years along with fruit trees such as jackfruit and mango. Below these, vegetables and tubers are grown which provide short-term income while the trees are maturing.

“There will typically be three or four layers, the lowest dominated by shade-tolerant species like ginger and turmeric. Eggplant will also grow here. The next layer up is for bananas, papaya and lemons, while the topmost layers belong to the larger fruit and timber trees,” says the article.

The authors suggest that this type of system may be able to grow more food and create something that vaguely resembles a forest. Estimates show that the agroforests will produce on average $3,000 per year over their 30-year life compared to around $111 per acre for rice.

Implementing and managing such a farming system however requires considerable start-up costs and farmer training.

Read the full story: Gardens in the sky: The advantages of agroforestry in Bangladesh