Agroforestry, which refers to the incorporation and maintenance of trees in agricultural landscapes, includes a diversity of indigenous, traditional and modern farming practices.
The practice may include scattered trees in pastures or on farms, lines of trees forming fences around fields, or growing food underneath the canopy of a forest. From a climate change perspective, the potential for agroforestry to increase or protect carbon storage on agricultural lands makes the practice a potential natural climate solution (NCS) that store carbon and reduce emissions without reducing the potential to produce food and fibre or biodiversity.
Agroforestry as natural climate solution refers to the intentional establishment, increase or maintenance of trees in agricultural landscapes. These trees provide additional net carbon storage, as opposed to removing all trees, without causing a reduction of present food and fibre production, or having a negative impact on biodiversity.
Agroforestry practices, as a natural climate solution, are thus likely to mitigate climate change, preventing a loss of food and income security and without the negative impact on biodiversity, as would the replacement of diverse native grassland with agroforestry would.
Aim of natural climate solutions
In other research, NCS are described as deliberate human actions, called NCS pathways, that protect, restore, and improve management of forests, wetlands, grasslands, oceans, and agricultural lands to mitigate climate change.
NCS are also defined as having no negative impact on food and fibre production or biodiversity. In addition, all actions must be implemented in socially and culturally responsible ways.
NSC Foundational principles
NCS foundational principles based on the following criteria: It is naturebased, sustainable, climate-additional,
measurable, and equitable.
Foundational principle 1: NCS are nature-based
1.1: NCS result from the human stewardship of ecosystems and result in net climate mitigation.
1.2: NCS do not move ecosystems further from their natural state and structure, composition, and function of the
natural system must be considered, as well as the current land use.
Foundational principle 2: NCS are sustainable
2.1: NCS sustain biodiversity, and no actions should move it away from its unmodified state.
2.2: NCS sustain food production in a durable way to sustain food security.
2.3: NCS sustain fibre and wood production while forest-based livelihoods are maintained.
2.4: NCS sustain climate adaptation services: NCS sustain climate adaptation services through the ecosystems where they are implemented.
Foundational principle 3: NCS are climate-additional
3.1: NCS provide additional climate mitigation that would not happen without human intervention.
3.2: NCS provide durable mitigation with additional climate benefits that persist over time.
3.3: NCS are not used to compensate for readily abatable emissions.
Foundational principle 4: NCS are measurable
Quantifying the overall magnitude of opportunity helps to focus efforts on the actions that offers most mitigation, for which appropriate accounting is required.
4.1: NCS are quantified in terms of cumulative effects on radiative forcing due to changes in stewardship.
4.2: NCS accounting is conservative, and data must be sufficient evidence exists to include it.
4.3: NCS with uncertainty ranges greater than the estimated climate mitigation should be flagged as emerging
4.4: NCS accounting avoids double-counting.
Foundational principle 5: NCS are equitable
5.1: NCS respect human rights and activities must comply with national laws and international human rights law.
5.2: NCS respect indigenous self-determination, including governance, knowledge, and spirituality.
Effects of climate change on agriculture
Climate change is not a myth, and it is affecting agriculture with far-reaching social, economic and environmental consequences.
•Climate change shows in rising temperatures and changing weather patterns that lead to droughts, heatwaves and floods. These cause water scarcity that leads to lower crop yields, sometimes in more than one region, which leads to food insecurity.
•Pests and plant diseases are popping up in more regions. This leads to livestock problems, like more parasites and vector-born diseases, heat stress and feed shortages.
•Bacteria like Salmonella and fungi also grow faster as the climate warms. They produce mycotoxins, that has a serious effect on food safety, which leads to food loss – think how many foods are being recalled because of bacteria like Salmonella.
•Other effects include erosion, changes in soil fertility and the length of the growing seasons.
Conditions to worsen
The most comprehensive scientific review about how climate change is going to worsen agricultural conditions, published in the journal Science, was undertaken by scientists from China’s Chongqing University alongside numerous international institutions, including The Nature Conservancy.
The study points out the long-term health of people and nature that depends on the resilience and sustainability of food production systems in light of ongoing climate change.
“This paper highlights where agriculture’s negative environmental impacts could be further magnified as the climate crisis deepens, exacerbating greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient pollution, and habitat and soil loss,” said lead author Yi Yang of Chongqing University.
The study points out that climate change will likely cause shrinking harvests, reduce the effectiveness of synthetic inputs of fertilisers, and worsen the damage caused by pests and diseases, as well as erosion.
The loss of fertility in soil and declining yields could lead to more land being cleared for agriculture, causing loss of wildlife habitat and biodiversity, and increasing the need for the application of fertiliser and pesticides in an effort to maintain productivity, but with a seriously deteriorating effect on surrounding ecosystem.
There is hope: Agroforestry
Although climate change is making it harder to achieve sustainable agriculture, there is hope. Many practices that make farming more resilient and sustainable can also help slow climate change. Cover crops, no-till and crop diversification that promote soil health, also increases the soil’s ability to store carbon. Equally, agroforestry has proved that it can help mitigate climate change while generating many benefits for livelihoods and the environment.
Benefits of agroforestry
Retain water
Including trees in farming supports ecosystem services such as water and sediment flows and carbon and nutrient cycling in soils. This leads to increased soil fertility, less soil erosion and flood and pest control.
Increase productivity
Agroforestry provides better farm productivity, diversify produce and reduce external inputs such as conventional fertilisers and chemicals for pest management, thereby saving money.
Diversify income
Farmers can diversify their income streams since agroforestry provides shade and fodder for livestock, while trees that serve as windbreaks, allow the planting of more diversified crops in the open spaces between the trees, and less sun loving plants in the filtered shade. planting more types of crops in the shade of the trees. In addition, the trees store carbon while reducing water pollution and emissions of nitrous oxide, which is even more beneficial than non-organic fertiliser.
Mitigate climate change
All above factors help mitigate climate change and help farmers to adapt to extreme and variable weather, which is only going to get worse. Agroforestry, and especially regenerative agroforestry, can play an immense role in mitigating climate. More about that in the next article.
Source references
Ellis, P.W., Page, A.M., Wood, S. et al (2024) The principles of natural climate solutions Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 547 (2024). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44425-2
Hart, D.E.T., Yeo, S. Almaraz, M., Beillouin, et.al. (2023)
Priority science can accelerate agroforestry as a natural climate solution. Nature
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01810-5Perspective
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01810-5.epdf?sharing_token=E9x2RzFx5_-XrhDOTckD69RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0MSh6RaK_AldItNmOd3v9fG5M5EkK3BLiUrrMhRGEH0CVP-bTMqLHmTwkaOwGtfNpXKdzvKH5Jtji5tfhdKffDPj8ZRLKTCHfO5-SRs9EdisxQtq41Aji6hF99Zck1Cbek%3D
Leny, Al. (2025) How agroforestry can help slow down climate change People Daily
https://peopledaily.digital/news/how-agroforestry-can-help-slow-down-climate-change
