Agroforestry = Climate mitigation (Mongabay)

[Juan P. Alvez]

Please check this Mongabay.com article on agroforestry –Agroforestry is a practice that integrates trees, shrubs, and crops in a system that functions well together; currently agroforestry systems cover over 1 billion hectares, the size of Canada, and removes 0.73 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere annually and which benefits food security and biodiversity--the first feature shares the ways this is a potentially key solution for the climate mitigation, water cycling, the environment, and communities.

Indigenous peoples have practiced agroforestry for millennia but this technique is now gaining popularity with farmers everywhere.

 

Link here: https://news.mongabay.com/2017/10/agroforestry-an-increasingly-popu...

 

-Juan Alvez

University of Vermont

[Brett Chedzoy]

some related news:

AN HOUR’S drive from Brasília, Brazil’s capital, humped zebu cattle take refuge from the heat of the cerrado (tropical savannah) under neat rows of eucalyptus trees. The grove and the cattle belong to the cerrados branch of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) in Planaltina. Their purpose is to help researchers test how best to alternate crops and livestock in order to turn degraded pastures into productive fields. Besides providing shade (and, eventually, timber), the trees put nutrients into the soil and offset the effects of methane, a greenhouse gas belched by the ruminants. In 2005 such “integrated systems” covered less than 2m hectares (5m acres). Today they occupy 15m hectares, 5% of Brazil’s farmland.

https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2018/06/30/tough-times-for-e...