10 Reasons why agroforestry is important

Our world is facing a number of challenges. An increasing population, an increasing population relying on animal products and other material items sourced from the earth. Changing weather patterns, conflicts, water availability, clean water availability, fresh food availability, unemployment, homelessness, racism, etc.

Where do we start? How do we begin to turn our attention towards one thing to allow us to think about the foundations to a healthier system on all fronts.

To relay where I have categorized agroforestry, I will give you my story of how I started getting into it, and where my journey seems to be leading me. I started off studying culture and language because this was my first passion. Yet in my first year of college I was introduced to the load of toxins in our environment, in a biology class. I thought biology was supposed to be about anatomy and taxonomy, and how systems work, the fact that we could only speak about pollution, made me realize that something has terribly gone wrong.

I switched my degree to policy and law, thinking that if I could join the political world, that I could help make more green policies and make a positive difference. I started learning more how many loopholes are in the system, I had the thought that if I were to spend my entire life trying to pass a new regulation, it could be ruled out the next year, or someone with enough resources could find a way to bypass it. This felt disgusting to me. And I decided that I'd rather spend my life growing nature, because even if eventually those trees get cut down, at least they were present for a time. And maybe that is the best difference I could make.

So if I was going to work with the earth, the action that we rely on the most that influences our environment is farming. I decided I wanted to learn sustainable agriculture. I discovered permaculture, which can miraculously turn deserts green! If we can turn deserts green, this surely must be the answer, to many of our problems. If we can take care of each other at the most fundamental level, provide clean water and food for people, we will absolutely be living in a more peaceful world.

I traveled to India to learn more, and came back to Utah to work in environmental consulting, while experimenting on my parents farm growing food, restoring the soil and attempting to remediate places that seemed to have nutrient overload by growing mushrooms! I'm a big fan of Paul Stamets by the way!

I started to learn that it wasn't just the way we farm that makes a big difference, but what we farm! That eating a plant based diet is the the best thing we can do for our environment, in terms of energy consumption, water resources, saving the rainforest, or other forests, detoxifying our rivers, streams and oceans, bringing back wildlife.... etc. I could go into the details here but honestly there is so much information out there about this, who can explain it much better than I can -- the best place to check out first is 'Cowspiracy', the best documentary I have seen that matches the things I have learned through research as well as my travel experience.

Permaculture is a wonderful systems approach to developing a sustainable model. However there have been some issues in implementing this on large scales, and also sorting through information to understand what practices are most relevant to the person seeking the answers. And I've also noticed as it's become more popular, without a real standardized approach to the learnings, that there is a great variety of the types of teachers out there, and some of them are phenomenal, and some of them unfortunately lack some knowledge about ecology and agricultural science. The challenge is the training is only 2 weeks, this kind of training is dependent on the individual to go out and learn on their own with the 'mentality structure' of a permaculturist. And sometimes this isn't a very straightforward learning process. It takes a lot of guess and check work, which at this point we don't have time for guess and check, we need to come together and share more about what works and what doesn't and unfortunately there isn't some amazing consolidation of all of the best sustainable practices for every soil and climate type. There are many avenues to study this, but they exist in a wide variety of places and often require, traveling and following recommendations and the magic of the universe to bring like minds together. I experienced much of my learnings through friends of friends giving recommendations of places to visit and experience.

I felt always a bit frustrated with permaculture, because despite my passion for the topic I struggled to find long-term apprenticeship programs, and short term ones that were affordable. And today things are changing, this was almost 10 years ago when permaculture was hardly on the map.

So from there I started exploring other modalities such as biodynamic and organic. Which were okay, organic had a very clear and concise path to follow if one was interested, and so did biodynamic. Although I found the magical element of biodynamic a bit too much. That similar results can be obtained without the need of collecting rare animal parts and doing rituals in the middle of the night.

And then I discovered agroforestry. And everything started coming together. Again this is a very big topic, but I will go through some of the reasons why this is so important. Someone reading this who has spent a lot of time in permaculture, could claim that this is all permaculture too, it is, I would say that agroforestry within the lense of permaculture is perfect. I find permaculture by itself to be too confusing to study alone because of the lack of structure that has been created by a profoundly diverse group of people promoting it, and often focusing too much on the thought systems rather than practical action based steps to creating and maintaining a system -- and this is what I found so amazing about learning agroforestry, and sintropic agroforestry because it provided the answers I was so desperately seeking while in the permaculture world.

1. Saving space

By supporting agroforestry we are promoting systems that make best use of not only the horizontal space but the vertical space. And we can make sure that trees are part of the process because it's called agroforestry. Organic, permaculture and biodynamic don't necessarily by definition mean that trees are being used in these practices.

2. Promotes soil health

We lose on average 7 tons of soil per acre worldwide. We lose this soil through destructive practices such as tilling, and the use of chemicals that destroy organisms in the soil that otherwise would help bind the soil together. We also lose the soil because we emphasize often on monocrops with similar root structures and don't incorporate trees, and we often don't even promote trees or plants in buffer zones as farmers are nervous about any potential location to host insects! What they don't know is that these buffer strips may have additional benefit for them by hosting predator insects. When you incorporate trees on a property, the massive root systems protect soil health much more than no cover, it allows the soil to hold more moisture, and provides other secretions to the soil that help promote a more solid soil cover. Combine trees with a no tilling system, no herbicide system, that incorporates organic matter back to the system after every harvest, and this is the most ideal situation for promoting soil health.

3. Grows more food

An agroforestry system will grow more food than any other system that doesn't incorporate it's vertical space. Agroforestry is about combining different types of plants that are compatible with each other making the most efficient use of space. Think of a jungle, there are no patches of bare soil. Life is abounding everywhere in abundant shapes and sizes. The idea that each plant has to be a solo unit surrounded by a certain amount of blank space, is a recipe for a lot of additional labor and or chemicals. Somehow we have to maintain blank spaces, yet nature doesn't naturally work like that. we get frustrated with weeds yet we are the ones working against nature to grow the food that we want in the time frame and the way that we want. Rather than complementing our food plant choices with compatible species that grow at different rates and compatible shapes to not thwart the other, or just plants such as clover which contribute back to the soil nitrogen and allow plants to grow into them.

4. Can promote food and water availability everywhere

Sometimes we get it in our minds that farming has too look a certain way, and that certain locations without trees are not supposed to have trees. These are all cultural constructs that fortunately can also be deconstructed. Trees can grow in deserts, and in fact will bring more water to an area if done right. This is the power of agroforestry, that they help maintain water in the soil, and when that moisture can be brought back into the air through transpiration of the plants and trees, and if there are enough plants and trees, the additional moisture in the air can condensate back into rain, back into the area. forests and water can be planted. All locations can be abundant in food and water resources with a little effort.

5. Saves money

Instead of trying to manage an annual garden every year. What about investing in perennials and trees and vines that grow food. This saves time and resources to allow nature to do more of the work for us, rather than solely depending on our ability to go to the store, have a job to buy the food, or much manual labor to replant an annual garden every year.

6. Teaches the value of nature

Somewhere along the line we have become much more disconnected from our natural systems. And our youth has become increasingly interested (it seems) in technological matters. And if people are allowing for some of our greatest natural treasures to be mined for economical purposes, it means as a society we are losing the biggest part of what it means to be connected to the earth. When we work directly with our hands in nature, when we plant a tree, when we care for different kinds of living beings in a way that allow nature to self express, and us to be a participant in the magic of its unfolding and to benefit from the fruits of its growth, connections are made, beauty is held. This silent connection between man and nature is much more profound. It's not likely to experience this silent fulfillment through the typical everyday bustle of routine-- cars, parties, stores... etc. The connection and peace found in nature is unlike anywhere else we can experience, through meditation we can get close, but it will never be quite the same, as allowing ourselves to be a unit in a whole, rather than a whole in a unit -- which is what meditation teaches.

7. Reduces input needs

Having a more complete system, with trees, allows for less inputs. As the trees recycle nutrients deep from below the soil, especially when leaves are lost or even in methods such as sintropic agroforestry where they intentionally cut down trees to provide the nutrients needed for the soil and also keeping the forest at an age that is most productive in terms of oxygen and resource production. It will also need less water as trees create shade, reducing temperatures which is especially important in more tropical locations.

8. Promotes human health

Planting a variety of crops enables humans to experiment more with varieties of plants, finding the most compatible growing companions. In this process, they may experiment with plants they are less familiar with, in order to create a complete agroforestry system. I believe that the greater variety of foods we allow ourselves to regularly consume, the greater our immunity will be. Every plant makes use of nutrients in the soil slightly different, and every plant also maintains certain percentages of certain nutrients in its fibers and leaves. The greater variety of the plants we eat, the less likely we will be to develop toxicity symptoms to some compound in some plant, or deficiency symptoms by only eating a few species that may be lacking in certain nutrients. Plus being in nature, has been proven to positively effect people who may be facing specific emotional and or mental challenges. Being in nature has a calming effect on the body and the nervous system. Our thoughts tend to slow down, we tend to be more receptive and aware of our surroundings, noticing the innate peace in life, that often can lack within our busy lives and horn filled streets.

9. Always useful, always beneficial

As opposed to other sustainable farming modals, the systems I have found within agroforestry, I feel have been the most important and the most useful for our society today. They have the most clear learning structures that I so far have been introduced to, with much less emphasis on things that don't matter as much (such as collecting rare animal bones and doing midnight ceremonies, or precisely layering 7 types of compost at a depth of 3 feet thick- that can actually do more harm than good to an environment -- talk about nutrient overload to our waterways eek). Specifically sintropic agroforestry, started by Ernst Goscht. The only thing I would add, would be yearly soil tests :D but that's the soil scientist within me :). The reality is many places it's either too expensive or not available to do soil testing. Which is unfortunate. However you can pay attention to your plant leaves to see if there are some nutritional deficiencies. The challenge here is that sometimes surpluses of certain nutrients can trigger deficiencies because sometimes the surplus of certain nutrients can bind with other important components -- such as phosphorus-- always be careful with phosphorus because too much can bind with zinc that can lead to challenges. This is more of a challenge in dryer regions because the rain doesn't filter the phosphorous out of the system, it tends to just keep building up. What I like about sintropic agroforestry is it's applicable on very large scales, hence has the potential of saving our rainforests. Because farming/agriculture is the leading driver to rainforest destruction. And sintropic is the most efficient system that has a very practical approach to -- earning money -- sustainably for the long term. Perhaps there is more labor overall in this system, however the yield is better and it's adventurous ;) -- meaning you get to climb trees and cut off their tops, to keep the system in a certain level of productivity. I took courses in this at sitio semente in Brasilia, and I must say, it was the most impressed I've been with anything I have learned directly from a farm site. I feel this knowledge is almost secret because there is very few resources in English on this topic. But perhaps we can change that :)

10. It's beautiful.

Somehow we have come to a point in our human evolution that beauty is in it's own category. Okay, material items need to be beautiful, I need to be beautiful you need to beautiful.... and we know exactly what that beauty looks like, how tall it should be, etc. Yet many of our items are based off of efficiency and cost. Why do we like to visit old places, maybe because artwork was interwoven in the walls or the support structures. Maybe because beauty was a part of our everyday work expression. Guaranteed a vibrant agroforest will be more likely to invoke a sense of beauty than a field of potatoes, or cows. Sorry cows, I love you, and I will never eat you and you are beautiful on your own, but as we have imprisoned you to degraded lands, overcrowded and forced to often walk through your own feces, this type of farming is not beautiful. It doesn't evoke my senses, it doesn't inspire me. And in fact it's not sustainable. The food these animals eat comes from places where they have cut down the rainforest to plant soy and corn, which can only grow for 5 years because tropical systems without trees are quick to die because the rains wash the nutrients away very quickly. The more we can enjoy to consume foods from plants and trees, the more we will be able to beautify our world with what we choose to fill our bodies with. As we choose to fill our bodies with other living mammals, we choose to fill not only our bodies but our world with the consequences of that, associated diseases, feces, waste products, factory farms, methane, high cholesterol, heart disease.... the list goes on.

If you happen to be a person who can't see themselves dropping meat and dairy, maybe it can be a consideration to try without for one meal. Maybe for two. Allow yourself to experiment not only with elimination -- but the addition of some delightful plant based recipe with ingredients you have never heard of before! The best way to let go of something, is to replace it with something better :) we can never know how much we may like something, if we never choose to experiment. Decide to be a lifelong experimenter-- and you can join me on this beautiful process :) Where I am always trying new recipes and flavors everyday. My food life is rich with color and vibrancy -- and becoming plant based was the most exciting thing I could have done to my food experiences on earth! Does it make sense to you in the value of this shared experience in creating a beautiful earth here for everyone. Are you with me? Mission plant based paradise :)