UK & Irish Agroforestry

According to the EU's AGFORWARD project, agroforestry can be defined as "the deliberate integration of woody vegetation (trees and/or shrubs) as an upper storey on land, with pasture (consumed by animals) or an agricultural crop in the lower storey. The woody species can be evenly or unevenly distributed or occur on the border of plots.  The woody species can deliver forestry or agricultural products or other ecosystem services (i.e. provisioning, regulating or cultural)".

In the 1970s, research on agroforestry in the UK and Ireland occurred in a piecemeal manner.  Due to difficulties in applying conclusions from isolated experiments across the countries, it was decided to establish experimental sites to carry out research on silvopastoral agroforestry based on experiments with common protocols.  This was the Silvopastoral National Network Experiment.

Map of agroforestry sites in the UK and Ireland, under construction (scheduled completion spring 2023)