Integrated Agroforestry

Planet2025 Communities helps local communities and cooperatives (upon their request) to establish forest gardens using an integrated agroforestry approach. Agroforestry is a land-use system that integrates agriculture, trees, people, and animals in the same space, resulting in improved soil quality, higher yields, and improved standards of living. Agroforestry has been practiced around the world in varying forms for thousands years, and as such it works well with the low-input land-management systems that are commonplace throughout the developing world.

Agroforestry techniques are tailored to the needs of the community. In communal forests, tree planting programs focus on large-scale reforestation and the promotion of non-timber forest products. In agricultural fields, fast-growing multipurpose tree species are integrated into the agricultural system for specific functions such as a windbreak, firebreak, woodlot, living fence, contour-planting for erosion control, alley-cropping to improve soil fertility, or other technology - in order to diversify products from a field and protect the fields from wind, water, animals, and fire.