#Agroforestry may be just what #Maine needs for agricultural growth

By Marina Schauffler
Published on: January 24, 2021

Excerpt: "Agroforestry, an age-old concept, could provide a path to Maine’s future. Part of the #RegenerativeAgriculture movement, it involves an integrated approach to cultivating #trees with #crops and – sometimes – #livestock. These diversified farm systems nourish #SoilHealth and #wildlife while offering more resilience in a warming world — locking up atmospheric carbon, absorbing floodwaters, and sheltering crops and animals from high winds and #ExtremeHeat.

" 'Diversity is really key to sustainability for small farms and the ecology of farms,' said vegetable farmer Max Boudreau of Winslow Farm in Falmouth. He sees many landowners and #homesteaders 'putting these principles into practice,' but said agroforestry is still 'a foreign concept' in farm service agencies.

"Being interdisciplinary, agroforestry challenges the siloed world of natural resource management. It is routinely ignored in college curricula and by technical service providers, said Meghan Giroux, an agroforestry researcher, technical service provider and practitioner in Vermont. Her nonprofit, #InterlaceCommons, seeks to fill that void by training farmers – including Boudreau – how to implement and maintain agroforestry practices.

"Boudreau was one of the 20 farmers selected among 92 applicants from around the Northeast for a free, agroforestry 'field consultancy' this year. Farmers are eager to learn about agroforestry’s potential to diversify income, and there’s growing consumer demand for its products – from nuts and uncommon fruits (like #honeyberry and #PawPaw) to #mushrooms and #MedicinalHerbs.

"Yet policymakers routinely tell Giroux there’s 'no interest in agroforestry,' she says. 'There’s no institutional will to move these practices forward primarily because people don’t understand them.'

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture has supported agroforestry since the 1990 Farm Bill and does exceptional research, Giroux feels, but “a knowledge-exchange issue” prevents guidance from reaching most landowners. A network of trained farmers could help support and train peers – a process that happens informally, Boudreau says, in the permaculture community, a related landscape design approach modeled after natural systems.

"Research has already demonstrated that #NoTill agriculture improves crop yields, reduces costs and improves soil health. Even more economic and environmental benefits could flow from cultivating crops in a layered, integrated mix of annuals and perennials more reminiscent of natural plant communities."

Full article:
https://themainemonitor.org/sea-change-agroforestry-may-be-just-what-maine-needs-for-agricultural-growth/

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