Agroforestry, a widespread practice in both developing and developed countries, is gaining visibility at national and international levels. However, several barriers prevent the broad-scale implementation of agroforestry practices. These barriers include inefficient markets, unclear land rights, limited access to knowledge and finance, and lack of intersectoral collaboration (Agroforestry Network, 2018). The Agroforestry Network proposes key enabling actions to scale up agroforestry, including:
- Improving access to credit and monetary resources by supporting scalable financial models that address long-term returns on investment in agroforestry practices.
- Enhancing farmers’ access to markets and creating value chains for agroforestry products.
- Providing farmers with high-quality planting material and extension services.
- Promoting demand-driven, participatory, and inclusive agroforestry-related research.
Despite intentions to expand agroforestry practices, significant gaps exist between countries’ ambitions and their capabilities to measure, report, and verify agroforestry actions (Rosenstock et al., 2018). Strategies, frameworks, and indicators need to be developed at all levels to measure diversified agroforestry systems and their climate benefits.
Policy Benefits of Climate Change Actions Through Agroforestry
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and other international organizations and scientific panels emphasize the importance of sustainable land management systems like agroforestry to generate multiple environmental and socio-economic benefits (e.g., FAO, 2019; IPBES, 2019; IPCC, 2019). Implementing agroforestry can help countries achieve climate change adaptation and mitigation goals, reforestation targets, and SDG targets related to food and water security. An analysis by CGIAR showed that, as of June 2018, over a third (59 of 147) of developing countries had proposed agroforestry as a climate change mitigation activity to achieve their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) under the UNFCCC (Rosenstock et al., 2018). Agroforestry can thus be a resilient land management solution with cross-cutting benefits for both climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Case Study – Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project
The Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project promotes agroforestry and has helped almost 30,000 farmers in western Kenya grow over 3 million indigenous agroforestry trees. Alongside this, farmers have learned other sustainable land management practices such as composting, mulching, and the application of livestock manure. Backed by the World Bank, Vi Agroforestry trains the farmers in practices to increase organic matter in the soil. Increased organic content in soil improves yields, provides resilience to droughts and heavy rains, limits erosion, and stores carbon, for which the farmers receive payment. The project sequestered about 345,000 tons of CO2 between 2010 and 2016, while also improving agrobiodiversity, food security, and climate change adaptation as co-benefits.
The project has been a game changer. Farmers who had experienced declines in crop and livestock yields and severe environmental degradation saw over a 150% increase in yields over eight years. Increasing yields was the main economic incentive for farmers to engage in the project. Since its start, savings among farmer families have increased, along with greater resilience to a wide range of shocks, including climate change impacts. Other results include increased knowledge about climate change and improved access to firewood, fruits, and fodder from trees. By the project’s end in 2030, the expected sequestered amount of carbon will be about 2 million tons (Agroforestry Network, 2018).