Multi-Party Agroforestry: Emergent Approaches to Trees and Tenure on Farms in the Midwest USA

Keeley, Keefe; Wolz, Kevin J.; Adams, Kaitie I.; Richards, Jeannine H.; Hannum, Erin; Fleming, Severine von Tscharner; Ventura, Stephen J.

doi:10.3390/su11082449

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 47 publications

(63 reference statements)

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“…Three enterprises, which were owned by businesses involving silent investors, rented their land in long-term leases; these farms were young, run by younger farmers, and oriented towards mechanization and eventual expansion. While leases and absentee farmland ownership are common in the Midwest (Petrzelka et al, 2013), long-term leases designed for agroforestry are unusual though gaining more attention (Hannum, 2016;Keeley et al, 2019). The two largest farm properties included (at least in part)…”

Section: Land Uses On Farmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…), integrating timber with grazing (silvopasture) or using timber trees in alley-cropping systems with an annual grain (Jose, 2009). The re-emergence of integrated tree crop systems in the US Midwest invites a contemporary investigation of both the ecological and social aspects of temperate perennial polycultures where woody plants are themselves the primary foodproducing crop (but see Kreitzman et al, in press;Lovell et al, 2018;Wolz et al, 2017; for biophysical approaches and Keeley et al, 2019 for case studies). Although woody perennial polyculture is not documented in the US Department of Agriculture census data, we know that there has been an increase in interest and implementation of these systems through the Savanna Institute, a non-profit organization that conducts research and education about agroforestry and perennial agriculture in the US Midwest, which was a partner in this project.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Local knowledge and relational values of Midwestern woody perennial polyculture farmers can inform tree‐crop policies

et al. 2021

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1. Agricultural producers, academics and policy-makers are increasingly interested in multifunctional tree crop systems as a solution for maintaining ecosystem services and producing food. The US Midwest is emerging as a hotbed of such systems in the temperate North in the form of farm-scale woody perennial polyculture enterprises, but they are currently only a tiny fraction of the landscape. Understanding how such approaches might be scaled up, thus, requires learning from the farmers that are at the forefront of the transition of land to woody perennial polyculture to answer a range of questions: What unique management knowledge is being implemented by farmers to manage complexity on multiple scales? What key challenges have farmers faced? And what values and motivations underpin these fledgling efforts? 2. From 13 interviews with 18 midwestern perennial polyculture farmers, we found that they largely used a small portion of their farm's land for their perennial enterprises, and did not earn a large portion of their income from them, though this was projected to increase as trees matured. Through experimentation, innovation and farmer networks, the farmers had amassed unique adaptive management expertise for balancing diverse crops and livestock within multifunctional tree crop systems over time and space, an area largely absent from mainstream agricultural science and policy. The barriers these farmers report facing are largely economic rather than biophysical, involving access to capital, insurance, mid-sized markets and regional processing infrastructure, as well as government programmes mismatched with perenniality.3. Cross-cutting these topics, farmers sought to fulfil values anchored in their relationships to land, to the community or to both. The values of long-termism, learning and sharing, diversity, stewardship and care of farmland, connection to nature and wildlife, self-sustenance, other-sustenance and eudaimonia were embodied and expressed in farmer decisions from the practical to the personal. 4. Economic and agrarian policy, as well as programme development for multifunctional tree crop systems, should (a) be designed to align with farmer's values and motivations and (b) take advantage of their expert management and systems | 181 People and Nature KREITZMAN ET Al.

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Section: Land Uses On Farmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local knowledge and relational values of Midwestern woody perennial polyculture farmers can inform tree‐crop policies

et al. 2021

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“…Too often, underlying the definitions of agro-ecological practices are unstated assumptions that agricultural systems are or should be based on individual ownership of land and equipment. Perennial agriculture can be the goal of a single farm operator or a community, with inter-generational or collective ownership, at the garden, farm, or landscape level (Keeley et al 2019). It can be implemented successfully within various scales, climates, and socioeconomic systems.…”

Section: Agroecological Endeavormentioning

confidence: 99%

An agroecological vision of perennial agriculture

Reynolds

Bell²,

Grace³

et al. 2021

Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems

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Not all agriculture based on perennial plants is ecologically sound or socially just. But an agroecological concept of perennial agriculture must be. We suggest three key elements of an agroecological vision for perennial agriculture. First, perennial agriculture must be managed with regard for the future as much as the present. Second, perennial agriculture must be situated in an ecological and social context, meeting the material, social, and ecological needs of the individuals and communities that engage in producing agricultural goods -making it what we term an "agroecological endeavor." Third, perennial agriculture must include a diversity of plants, including -but not limited to -perennial plants. Thus, we propose envisioning perennial agriculture as the perennial management of an agroecological endeavor that includes perennial plants.

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“…In both, perennial crops are not only used for timber, shade, and fruit but also provide staple nutrition that is integrated with both animals and annual production under polycultural management. Modern examples of such systems on a commercial farm scale are emerging in recent years in the Midwest: one of the most industrialized food systems in the world (see example case studies in Keeley et al 2019). While woody perennial polyculture is not documented in U.S. Department of Agriculture census data, we know that there has been a significant increase in interest and implementation of these systems through the Savanna Institute, a nonprofit organization that conducts research and education about agroforestry and perennial agriculture in the U.S. Midwest, which was a partner in this project.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Woody perennial polycultures in the U.S. Midwest enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions

et al. 2022

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Given the massive and growing environmental impacts of conventional agriculture, humanity needs new methods for growing food that not only meet dietary needs but also provide for multiple ecosystem functions with potential benefits to people and biodiversity. Concepts from ecology and complex adaptive systems suggest that persistent structural heterogeneity and functional diversity are key for supporting biodiversity, ecosystem services, and resilience, but these concepts have not been extensively applied in agriculture, which is still dominated by annual monocropping systems. Perennial agriculture seems to embody these ecological concepts-particularly perennial polycultures that combine a variety of long-lived woody perennial food crops with continuous ground cover. However, our understanding of the benefits and trade-offs of such systems compared to conventional agriculture is limited, especially in temperate climates. Here, we provide a systematic and comprehensive study of the ecological attributes of 14 woody perennial polyculture farm fields to conventional annual and hay fields in the U.S. Midwest, one of the most industrialized food-producing regions in the world. We found that perennial fields had (1) more diverse soil fungal, invertebrate, plant, and bird communities but found no difference in soil bacterial communities; (2) less compacted soil; (3) denser ground cover; (4) more active carbon, organic carbon, and nitrogen and the same available phosphorus in the top layer of soil; and (5) more species of predatory, detritivorous, and herbivorous insects, and approximately fourfold higher abundance of herbivorous insects. Food production from the oldest half of perennial fields was only 14.7% of a regional corn/soy rotation by weight, but increased with the age of the perennial field and had high nutritional diversity. Together, these findings indicate that woody perennial polyculture fields in the U.S. Midwest are characterized by higher biodiversity and ecosystem functions than adjacent conventional fields. Woody perennial polycultures in the temperate north might play a role in the transition of agricultural landscapes toward sustaining both people and nature over the long term.

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Multi-Party Agroforestry: Emergent Approaches to Trees and Tenure on Farms in the Midwest USA

Cited by 14 publications

References 47 publications

Local knowledge and relational values of Midwestern woody perennial polyculture farmers can inform tree‐crop policies

Local knowledge and relational values of Midwestern woody perennial polyculture farmers can inform tree‐crop policies

An agroecological vision of perennial agriculture

Woody perennial polycultures in the U.S. Midwest enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions

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