Stephen Briggs, an organic farmer and advisor based on the fenlands of Cambridgeshire, has spent the last 18 months visiting agroforestry systems in New Zealand, China, North America and Europe as part of his Nuffield scholarship to explore “The adoption of commercial agroforestry and its applicability to UK & temperate farming systems” in different countries and see what systems and approaches were appropriate for UK farmers. He found that successful systems are being used on farms in Canada, the USA, China and in more than 18 EU member states. One of his key conclusions is that modern agroforestry systems are compatible with present-day agricultural techniques and tree densities c. 100 trees/ha allow alley crop productivity to be maintained. His report is now available on-line (External PDF 4.16 MB).
