Agroforestry at International Farming Systems Association Conference

An agroforestry workshop took place at the International Farming Systems Association Conference on 13 July 2016 at Harper Adams University in Shropshire, England. Seven speakers from the UK, Belgium, Italy, Germany, and Portugal provided updates of their research to an international audience. A fascinating field trip was held on 14 July.

AGFORWARD Third General Assembly

The AGFORWARD consortium held a successful Third General Assembly at Montpellier SupAgro in Southern France on 26 and 27 May 2016. This was an ideal venue as the meeting rooms and cafeteria were all in the same building. Our hosts were Christian Dupraz, Marie Gosme, and Delphine Mézière from INRA. In total 48 AGFORWARD researchers attended the two day meeting and we were pleased to welcome six participants to their first AGFORWARD meeting. The meeting was preceded by the Third European Agroforestry Conference, also at Montpellier, between 23 and 25 May where many researchers had presented their work to up to 270 delegates.

The Project Co-ordinator, Paul Burgess, also welcomed members of the External Expert Advisory Panel to the General Assembly: Professor Shibu Jose from the University of Missouri, Professor PK Nair with Professor Vimala Nair from the University of Florida, and Dr Gerry Lawson from Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in the UK. The External Expert Advisory Panel contributed positively to the various workshops and provided helpful guidance on how to advance the research and dissemination activities.

The General Assembly was primarily a working meeting with individuals working together to advance the completion of various milestones and deliverables that contribute to the overall aim of the project to promote agroforestry in Europe and the completion of the Second Progress Report. We hope to report these on the AGFORWARD website during the coming months.

Modeling workshop in Portugal

An AGFORWARD modeling workshop was hosted by Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA) in Lisbon from Monday 22 to Thursday 25 February 2016. It focused on the modelling of agroforestry for arable farms using the Yield-SAFE and Farm-SAFE bio-economic models and was attended by AGFORWARD participants from Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK.

Education in Agroforestry: Building Today’s and Tomorrow’s Agriculture

During 2014 and 2015, the European Union has supported the AgroFE project focused on “Agroforestry Education in Europe”

AGFORWARD supported a successful “Agroforestry Day” at the European Union Pavilion at EXPO2015 in Milan. The photograph above shows the “Tree of Life” situated immediately outside the pavilion.

World Congress on Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forest Systems

Paul Burgess, of Cranfield University and Co-ordinator of the AGFORWARD project, presented work from AGFORWARD at the World Congress on Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forest Systems held at Brasilia in Brazil from 13 to 17 July 2015. Paul gave a plenary presentation on “Financial and economic benefits of integrated crop-livestock-tree systems in Europe” and presented a poster on “At what scale should livestock-forest systems be considered”.