Agroforestry in a semi-arid climate
Research Overview
Climate change poses a major challenge to feeding the world’s growing population. To meet this challenge, we need resilient and adaptable food production systems. This research explores agroforestry (AFS) as a promising approach within the framework of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA), especially in semi-arid regions.
A team of six Master's students investigated the potential of large-scale agroforestry systems to support the three pillars of CSA: food security, climate adaptation, and mitigation. Their central research question:
What are the advantages and disadvantages of agroforestry systems under semi-arid conditions?
To answer this, the team explored the following topics:
The role of AFS in food production, adaptation, and mitigation.
Environmental benefits of AFS.
Socioeconomic impacts of AFS.
Evaluation of AFS within a sustainable agriculture business case in Hungary using Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA).
How agroforestry should be adapted for implementation as a CSA strategy in semi-arid areas.
Case Study: Hungary
The research focused on three future scenarios in Hungary:
High-Productive (HP): Significant investment in sustainable, intensive systems such as Metropolitan Food Clusters (MFCs).
Marginalisation: Abandonment of agricultural land, where AFS could restore degraded landscapes.
Business-as-Usual (BaU): Continuation of conventional agriculture, with AFS introduced as a new practice.
The team conducted literature reviews, expert interviews, and an MCA to assess the feasibility and sustainability of AFS in each scenario. Evaluations considered the perspectives of entrepreneurs, ecologists, and policymakers.
Key Findings
Environmental Performance: AFS improves microclimates, supports biodiversity, and offers strong potential for CO₂ sequestration.
Resilience: Agroforestry systems are more adaptive to climate variability compared to monocultures.
Productivity: Combining trees with crops or livestock enhances yield through resource efficiency and synergy.
Socioeconomics: No one-size-fits-all model exists; policies must be tailored to local conditions.
Feasibility: AFS outperformed conventional agriculture across all scenarios, with varying strengths depending on the stakeholder perspective.
WMFC Perspective
The WMFC team initiated this research to explore how agroforestry can be integrated into high-productivity and large-scale agricultural systems. As part of its mission, WMFC focuses on developing sustainable food production systems that improve the efficiency of land, water, energy, and resource use, especially in the context of climate change.
This interdisciplinary project combined insights from environmental science, economics, farm technology, and governance. The findings confirm that agroforestry can be a powerful component of CSA, even in demanding semi-arid conditions, and especially when applied at scale within frameworks like MFCs.
Future research will continue exploring how the spatial design and scale of tree-crop integration impact sustainability and performance.
