Agroforestry (also known asagro-sylviculture orforest farming) is aland use management system that integratestrees withcrops orpasture. It combinesagricultural andforestry technologies. As apolyculture system, an agroforestry system can produce timber andwood products,fruits,nuts, otheredible plant products,edible mushrooms,medicinal plants,ornamental plants, animals andanimal products, and other products from both domesticated and wild species.[1]
Agroforestry can be practiced for economic, environmental, and social benefits, and can be part ofsustainable agriculture.[2] Apart from production, benefits from agroforestry include improved farm productivity,[3] healthier environments, reduction of risk for farmers,[4] beauty and aesthetics, increased farm profits, reduced soil erosion, creating wildlife habitat, less pollution, managing animal waste, increased biodiversity, improved soil structure, andcarbon sequestration.
Agroforestry practices are especially prevalent in the tropics, especially in subsistencesmallholdings areas, with particular importance in sub-Saharan Africa. Due to its multiple benefits, for instance innutrient cycle benefits and potential for mitigating droughts, it has been adopted in the US and Europe.
At its most basic, agroforestry is any of variouspolyculture systems that intentionally integratetrees withcrops orpasture on the same land.[5][2][6] An agroforestry system is intensively managed to optimize helpful interactions between the plants and animals included, and "uses the forest as a model fpractices".[7] The integration of tree species into farming systems initiates the development of an agroecological succession akin to natural vegetation. Hence, agroforestry is applied agroecology.[8]
Agroforestry shares principles with polyculture practices such asintercropping, but can also involve much more complex multi-strata agroforests containing hundreds of species. Agroforestry can also utilisenitrogen-fixing plants such aslegumes to restore soil nitrogen fertility. Many farmers practicing agroforestry do not identify their land use as "agroforestry", signaling a need for greater education and awareness to increase adoption of these sustainable practices.[9]
The term "agroforestry" was coined in 1973 by Canadian forester John Bene, but the concept includes agricultural practices that have existed for millennia.[10]Scientific agroforestry began in the 20th century withethnobotanical studies carried out byanthropologists. However, indigenous communities that have lived in close relationships withforest ecosystems have practiced agroforestry informally for centuries.[11] For example,Indigenous peoples of California periodically burned oak and other habitats to maintain a 'pyrodiversity collecting model,' which allowed for improved tree health and habitat conditions.[12] Likewise Native Americans in the eastern United States extensively altered their environment and managed land as a "mosaic" of woodland areas,orchards, and forest gardens.[13]
Agroforestry in thetropics is ancient and widespread, notably in the form of "tropical home gardens." Some of those plots have been continuously cultivated for centuries. A "home garden" in Central America could contain 25 different species of trees and food crops on just one-tenth of an acre.[14] "Tropical home gardens" are traditional systems developed over time by growers without formalized research or institutional support, and are characterized by a high complexity and diversity of useful plants, with a canopy of tree and palm species that produce food, fuel, and shade, a mid-story of shrubs for fruit or spices, and an understory of root vegetables, medicinal herbs, beans, ornamental plants, and other non-woody crops.[15]
In 1929, J. Russel Smith publishedTree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, in which he argued that American agriculture should be changed two ways: by using non-arable land for tree agriculture, and by using tree-produced crops to replace the grain inputs in the diets of livestock. Smith wrote that thehoney locust tree, a legume that produced pods that could be used as nutritious livestock feed, had great potential as a crop. The book's subtitle later led to the coining of the termpermaculture.[16]
The most studied agroforestry practices involve a simple interaction between two components, such as simple configurations of hedges or trees integrated with a single crop.[17] There is significant variation in agroforestry systems and the benefits they have.[18] Agroforestry as understood by modern science is derived from traditional indigenous and local practices, developed by living in close association with ecosystems for many generations.[11]
Benefits include increasing farm productivity and profitability, reduced soil erosion, creating wildlife habitat, managing animal waste,[19] increased biodiversity, improved soil structure, andcarbon sequestration.[20]
Agroforestry systems can provide advantages over conventional agricultural and forest production methods. They can offer increased productivity; social, economic and environmental benefits, as well as greater diversity in the ecological goods and services provided.[21] These benefits are conditional on good farm management. This includes choosing the right trees, as well as pruning them regularly etc.[22]
Agroforestry supportsbiodiversity in different ways. It provides a more diverse habitat than a conventional agricultural system in which the tree component creates ecological niches for a wide range of organisms both above and below ground. The life cycles and food chains associated with this diversification initiate an agroecological succession that creates functionalagroecosystems that confer sustainability. Tropical bat and bird diversity, for instance, can be comparable to the diversity in natural forests.[23] Although agroforestry systems do not provide as many floristic species as forests and do not show the same canopy height, they do provide food and nesting possibilities. A further contribution to biodiversity is that thegermplasm of sensitive species can be preserved.[24] As agroforests have no natural clear areas, habitats are more uniform. Furthermore, agroforests can serve as corridors between habitats. Agroforestry can help conserve biodiversity, positively influencing other ecosystem services.[24]
Depleted soil can be protected fromsoil erosion bygroundcover plants such as naturally growing grasses in agroforestry systems. These help to stabilise the soil as they increase cover compared to short-cycle cropping systems.[25][26] Soil cover is a crucial factor in preventing erosion.[27][28] Cleaner water through reducednutrient andsoilsurface runoff can be a further advantage of agroforestry. Trees can help reduce water runoff by decreasing water flow and evaporation and thereby allowing for increased soil infiltration.[29] Compared to row-cropped fields nutrient uptake can be higher and reduce nutrient loss into streams.[30][31]
Agroforestry systems can provide ecosystem services which can contribute tosustainable agriculture in the following ways:
According to theFood and Agriculture Organization'sThe State of the World's Forests 2020, adopting agroforestry and sustainable production practices, restoring the productivity of degraded agricultural lands, embracing healthier diets and reducing food loss and waste are all actions that urgently need to be scaled up. Agribusinesses must meet their commitments to deforestation-free commodity chains and companies that have not made zero-deforestation commitments should do so.[34]
Carbon sequestration is an important ecosystem service.[35][24][36] Agroforestry practices can increase carbon stocks in soil and woody biomass.[37] Trees in agroforestry systems, like in new forests, can recapture some of the carbon that was lost by cutting existing forests. They also provide additional food and products. The rotation age and the use of the resulting products are important factors controlling the amount of carbon sequestered. Agroforests can reduce pressure on primary forests by providing forest products.[38]
Agroforestry can significantly contribute toclimate change mitigation along with adaptation benefits.[39] A case study in Kenya found that the adoption of agroforestry drove carbon storage and increased livelihoods simultaneously among small-scale farmers. In this case, maintaining the diversity of tree species, especially land use and farm size are important factors.[40]
Poor smallholder farmers have turned to agroforestry as a means to adapt toclimate change. A study from theCGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security found from a survey of over 700 households in East Africa that at least 50% of those households had begun planting trees in a change from earlier practices. The trees were planted with fruit, tea, coffee, oil, fodder and medicinal products in addition to their usual harvest. Agroforestry was one of the most widespread adaptation strategies, along with the use of improved crop varieties and intercropping.[41]
Trees in agroforestry systems can producewood, fruits, nuts, and other useful products. Agroforestry practices are most prevalent in the tropics,[42][43] especially in subsistencesmallholdings areas[44] such as sub-Saharan Africa.[22][45]
Research with the leguminous treeFaidherbia albida in Zambia showed maximum maize yields of 4.0 tonnes per hectare using fertilizer and inter-cropped with the trees at densities of 25 to 100 trees per hectare,[46] compared to average maize yields in Zimbabwe of 1.1 tonnes per hectare.[47]
A well-studied agroforestry hillside system is the Quesungual Slash and Mulch Agroforestry System inLempira Department,Honduras. This region was historically used forslash-and-burnsubsistence agriculture. Due to heavy seasonal floods, the exposed soil was washed away, leaving infertile barren soil exposed to the dry season.[48] Farmed hillside sites had to be abandoned after a few years and new forest was burned. The UN's FAO helped introduce a system incorporating local knowledge consisting of the following steps:[49][50]
Thekuojtakiloyan ofMexico is a jungle-landscaped polyculture that growsavocadoes,sweet potatoes,cinnamon,black cherries,cuajiniquil [es],citrus fruits,gourds,macadamia,mangoes,bananas andsapotes.[51]
Kuojtakiloyan is aMasehual term that means 'useful forest' or 'forest that produces', and it is an agroforestry system developed and maintained by indigenous peoples of theSierra Norte of theState of Puebla,Mexico. It has become a vital fountain of resources (food, medicinal herbs, fuels,floriculture, etc.) for the local population, but it is also a respectful transformation of the environment, with itsbiodiversity andnature conservation. Thekuojtakiloyan comes directly from the ancestralNahua andTotonaku knowledge of their natural environment.[52]
Thekuojtakiloyan is a jungle-landscapedpolyculture in whichavocados,sweet potatoes,cinnamon,black cherries,chalahuits,citrus fruits,gourds,macadamia,mangoes,bananas andsapotes are grown.[52][53] In addition, a wide variety of harvested wild edible mushrooms and herbs (quelites). Thejonote is planted because its fiber is useful in basketry, and alsobamboo, which is fast growing, to build cabins and other structures. Concurrently tokuojtakiloyan,shade coffee is grown (café bajo sombra inSpanish;kafentaj in Masehual). Shade is essential to obtain high quality coffee.[54] The local population has favored the proliferation of thestingless bee (pisilnekemej) by including the plants that it pollinates. From bees, they get honey, pollen, wax andpropolis.[52]
With shade applications, crops are purposely raised under tree canopies within the shady environment. The understory crops are shade tolerant or the overstory trees have fairly open canopies. A conspicuous example isshade-grown coffee. This practice reduces weeding costs and improves coffee quality and taste.[55][56]
With alley cropping, crop strips alternate with rows of closely spaced tree or hedge species. Normally, the trees are pruned before planting the crop. The cut leafy material - for example, fromAlchornea cordifolia andAcioa barteri - is spread over the crop area to provide nutrients. The hedges serve as windbreaks and reduce erosion.[57] In tropical areas of North and South America, various species ofInga such asI. edulis andI. oerstediana have been used for alley cropping.[58]Weed control is inherent to the practice, providing mulch and shade.[57]
Syntropic farming, syntropic agriculture or syntropic agroforestry is anorganic,permaculture agroforestry system developed byErnst Götsch in Brazil.[59][60] Sometimes this system is referred to as asuccessional agroforestry systems orSAFS, which sometimes refer to a broader concept originating in Latin America.[61] The system focuses on replicating natural systems of accumulation of nutrients in ecosystems, replicatingsecondary succession, in order to create productive forest ecosystems that producefood,ecosystem services and otherforest products.[62]
The system relies on several processes:
The systems were first developed in tropical Brazil, but many similar systems have been tested in temperate environments as soil and ecosystem restoration tactics.[64]
The framework for the syntropic agroforestry is advocated for byAgenda Gotsch an organization built to promote the systems.[65]
Syntropic systems have a number of documented benefits, including increased soil water penetration,[66] increases to productivity on marginal land[67] and soil temperature moderation.[68]
Taungya is a system fromBurma. In the initial stages of an orchard or treeplantation, trees are small and widely spaced. The free space between the newly planted trees accommodates a seasonal crop, providing additional income. More complex taungyas use between-tree space for multiple crops. The crops become more shade tolerant as the tree canopies grow and the amount of sunlight reaching the ground declines. Thinning can maintain sunlight levels.[69]
Itteri agroforestry systems have been used inTamil Nadu since time immemorial. They involve the deliberate management of multipurpose trees and shrubs grown in intimate association with herbaceous species. They are often found along village and farm roads, small gullies, and field boundaries.[70]
Bamboo-based agroforestry systems (Dendrocalamus strictus + sesame–chickpea) have been studied for enhancing productivity in semi-arid tropics ofcentral India.[71]
A project to mitigate climate change with agriculture was launched in 2019 by the "Global EverGreening Alliance". The target is to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. By 2050 the restored land should sequestrate 20 billion tons of carbon annually.[72]
Shamba (Swahili for 'plantation') is an agroforestry system practiced in East Africa, particularly inKenya. Under this system, various crops are combined: bananas, beans, yams and corn, to which are addedtimber resources,beekeeping,medicinal herbs,mushrooms,forest fruits,fodder for livestock, etc.[73]
Native Hawaiians formerly practiced agroforestry adapted to the islands' tropical landscape, using in particularbreadfruit andcoconut. Their ability to do this influenced the region's carrying capacity, social harmony, cooperation, and political complexity.[74] More recently, after scientific study of lo'I systems, attempts have been made to reintroduce dryland agroforestry in Hawaiʻi Island and Maui, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between political leaders, landowners, and scientists.[75]
Although originally a concept in tropical agronomy,[20] agroforestry's multiple benefits, for instance in nutrient cycles and potential for mitigating droughts, have led to its adoption in the US and Europe.[76][77][78]
TheUnited States Department of Agriculture distinguishes five applications of agroforestry fortemperate climates, namely alley cropping, forest farming, riparian forest buffers, silvopasture, and windbreaks.[20]
Alley cropping can also be used in temperate climates. Strip cropping is similar to alley cropping in that trees alternate with crops. The difference is that, with alley cropping, the trees are in single rows. With strip cropping, the trees or shrubs are planted in wide strips. The purpose can be, as with alley cropping, to provide nutrients, in leaf form, to the crop. With strip cropping, the trees can have a purely productive role, providing fruits, nuts, etc. while, at the same time, protecting nearby crops from soil erosion and harmful winds.[20]
In forest farming, high-value crops are grown under a suitably-managed tree canopy. This is sometimes called multi-story cropping, or in tropical villages as home gardening. It can be practised at varying levels of intensity but always involves some degree of management; this distinguishes it from simple harvesting of wild plants from the forest.[20]
Riparian buffers are strips of permanent vegetation located along or near active watercourses or in ditches wherewater runoff concentrates. The purpose is to keep nutrients and soil from contaminating the water.[20]
Trees can benefit fauna in asilvopasture system, where cattle, goats, or sheep browse on grasses grown under trees.[20][79]
Thedehesa ormontado system ofsilviculture are an example of pigs and bulls being heldextensively in Spain andPortugal.[80]
Windbreaks reduce wind velocity over and around crops. This increases yields through reduced drying of the crop and/or by preventing the crop from toppling in strong wind gusts.[20]
Since the 1950s, four-fifths of SwissHochstammobstgärten (traditional orchards with tall trees) have disappeared. An agroforestry scheme was tested here withhochstamm trees together with annual crops. Trees tested were walnut (Juglans regia) and cherry (Prunus avium). Forty to seventy trees per hectare were recommended, yields were somewhat decreasing with increasing tree height and foliage.[81] However, the total yield per area is shown to be up to 30 percent higher than for monocultural systems.[82]
Another set of tests involve growingPopulus tremula forbiofuel at 52 trees a hectare and with grazing pasture alternated every two to three years with maize orsorghum, wheat, strawberries and fallowing between rows of modern short-pruned & grafted applecultivars ('Boskoop' &'Spartan') and growing modernsour cherry cultivars ('Morina', 'Coraline' and 'Achat') and apples, with bushes in the rows with tree (dogrose,Cornus mas,Hippophae rhamnoides) intercropped with various vegetables.[83]
Forest gardening is a low-maintenance,sustainable,[84] plant-based food production and agroforestry system based onwoodlandecosystems, incorporatingfruit andnuttrees,shrubs,herbs,vines andperennial vegetables which haveyields directly useful to humans. Making use ofcompanion planting, these can beintermixed to grow in a succession of layers to build a woodland habitat.Forestgardening is aprehistoric method of securing food intropical areas. In the 1980s,Robert Hart coined the term "forest gardening" after adapting the principles and applying them totemperate climates.[85]
Sinceprehistoric times,hunter-gatherers might have influenced forests, for instance in Europe byMesolithic people bringing favored plants like hazel with them.[86] Forestgardens are probably the world's oldest form of land use and most resilientagroecosystem.[87]: 124 [88] First Nation villages inAlaska with forest gardens filled with nuts, stone fruit, berries, and herbs, were noted by an archeologist fromthe Smithsonian in the 1930s.[89]
Forest gardens are still common in thetropics and known as Kandyan forest gardens inSri Lanka;[90]huertos familiares, family orchards inMexico;[91] agroforests; or shrub gardens. They have been shown to be a significant source of income and food security for local populations.[92]
Robert Hart adapted forest gardening for theUnited Kingdom's temperate climate during the 1980s.[85]
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Hart began farming atWenlock Edge inShropshire to provide a healthy and therapeutic environment for himself and his brother Lacon. Starting as relatively conventionalsmallholders, Hart soon discovered that maintaining large annual vegetable beds, rearing livestock and taking care of anorchard were tasks beyond their strength. However, a small bed of perennial vegetables and herbs he planted was looking after itself with little intervention.[93]
Following Hart's adoption of araw vegan diet for health and personal reasons, he replaced his farm animals with plants. The three main products from a forest garden are fruit, nuts andgreen leafy vegetables.[94] He created a model forest garden from a 0.12 acre (500 m2) orchard on his farm and intended naming his gardening methodecological horticulture orecocultivation.[87]: 45 Hart later dropped these terms once he became aware thatagroforestry andforest gardens were already being used to describe similar systems in other parts of the world.[87]: 28, 43 He was inspired by theforest farming methods ofToyohiko Kagawa and James Sholto Douglas, and the productivity of the Keralan home gardens; as Hart explained, "From the agroforestry point of view, perhaps the world's most advanced country is the Indian state of Kerala, which boasts no fewer than three and a half million forest gardens ... As an example of the extraordinary intensity of cultivation of some forest gardens, one plot of only 0.12 hectares (0.30 acres) was found by a study group to have twenty-three young coconut palms, twelve cloves, fifty-six bananas, and forty-nine pineapples, with thirty pepper vines trained up its trees. In addition, the smallholder grew fodder for hishouse-cow."[87]: 4–5
TheAgroforestry Research Trust, managed byMartin Crawford, runs experimental forest gardening projects on a number of plots inDevon, United Kingdom.[96] Crawford describes a forest garden as a low-maintenance way ofsustainably producing food and other household products.[97]
Ken Fern had the idea that for a successful temperate forest garden a wider range of edible shade tolerant plants would need to be used. To this end, Fern created the organisationPlants for a Future which compiled a plant database suitable for such a system. Fern used the termwoodland gardening, rather than forest gardening, in his bookPlants for a Future.[98][99]
Kathleen Jannaway, the cofounder of Movement for Compassionate Living (MCL) with her husband Jack,[100] wrote a book outlining a sustainable vegan future calledAbundant Living in the Coming Age of the Tree in 1991. The MCL promotes forest gardening and other types ofvegan organic gardening. In 2009 it provided a grant of £1,000 to the Bangor Forest Garden project inGwynedd, North West Wales.[101]
Bill Mollison, who coined the termpermaculture, visited Hart at his forest garden in October 1990.[87]: 149 Permaculturalists such as Graham Bell,Patrick Whitefield, Dave Jacke,Eric Toensmeier andGeoff Lawton favour forest gardens.[102] Bell started building his forest garden in 1991 and wrote the bookThe Permaculture Garden in 1995, Whitefield wrote the bookHow to Make a Forest Garden in 2002, Jacke and Toensmeier co-authored the two volume book setEdible Forest Gardens in 2005, and Lawton presented the filmEstablishing a Food Forest in 2008.[103][104][105]
Forest gardens, or home gardens, are common in the tropics, usingintercropping to cultivatetrees,crops, andlivestock on the same land. InKerala insouth India as well as innortheastern India, the home garden is the most common form of land use and is also found inIndonesia. One example combinescoconut,black pepper,cocoa andpineapple. These gardens exemplifypolyculture, and conserve much cropgenetic diversity andheirloom plants that are not found inmonocultures. Forest gardens have been loosely compared to the religious concept of theGarden of Eden.[106]
TheAmazon rainforest, rather than being a pristinewilderness, has been shaped by humans for at least 11,000 years through practices such as forest gardening andterra preta.[107] Since the 1970s, numerousgeoglyphs have been discovered on deforested land in the Amazon rainforest, furthering the evidence ofpre-Columbian civilizations.[108][109]
On theYucatán Peninsula, much of theMaya food supply was grown in "orchard gardens", known aspet kot.[110] The system takes its name from the low wall of stones (pet meaning 'circular' andkot, 'wall of loose stones') that characteristically surrounds the gardens.[111]
The environmental historian William Cronon argued in his 1983 bookChanges in the Land that indigenous North Americans used controlled burning to form ideal habitat for wild game. The natural environment of New England was sculpted into a mosaic of habitats. When indigenous Americans hunted, they were "harvesting a foodstuff which they had consciously been instrumental in creating".[112] Most English settlers, however, assumed that the wealth of food provided by the forest was a result of natural forces, and that indigenous people lived off "the unplanted bounties of nature."[113] Animal populations declined after settlement, while fields of strawberries and raspberries found by the earliest settlers became overgrown and disappeared for want of maintenance.[114]
El Pilar on theBelize–Guatemala border features a forest garden to demonstratetraditional Maya agricultural practices.[115][116] A further one acre model forest garden, called Känan K'aax (meaning 'well-tended garden' in Mayan), is funded by theNational Geographic Society and developed at Santa Familia Primary School inCayo.[117]
In the United States, the largest known food forest on public land is believed to be the seven acreBeacon Food Forest in Seattle, Washington.[118] Other forest garden projects include those at the central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute inBasalt, Colorado, and Montview Neighborhood farm inNorthampton, Massachusetts.[119][120] The Boston Food Forest Coalition promotes local forest gardens.[121][122][123][124]
In Canada, Richard Walker has been developing and maintaining food forests inBritish Columbia for over 30 years. He developed a three-acre food forest that at maturity provided raw materials for a plant nursery and herbal business as well as food for his family.[125] The Living Centre has developed various forest garden projects inOntario.[126]
In the United Kingdom, other than those run by the Agroforestry Research Trust (ART), projects include the Bangor Forest Garden inGwynedd, northwest Wales.[127] Martin Crawford from ART administers the Forest Garden Network, an informal network of people and organisations who are cultivating forest gardens.[128][129]
Since 2014, Gisela Mir and Mark Biffen have been developing a small-scale edible forest garden inCardedeu nearBarcelona, Spain, for experimentation and demonstration.[130]
Forest farming is the cultivation of high-value specialtycrops under aforest canopy that is intentionally modified or maintained to provide shade levels and habitat that favor growth and enhance production levels. Forest farming encompasses a range of cultivated systems from introducing plants into theunderstory of a timber stand to modifying forest stands to enhance themarketability and sustainable production of existing plants.[131]
Forest farming is a type of agroforestry practice characterized by the "four I's": intentional, integrated, intensive and interactive.[132]
Non-timber forest products are plants, parts of plants, fungi, and other biological materials harvested from within and on the edges of natural, manipulated, or disturbed forests.[133] Examples include ginseng, shiitake mushrooms, decorative ferns, and pine straw.[134]
Forest farming has long been practiced around the world, as people have relied on fruits, nuts, seeds, and foliage from trees and shrubs to feed themselves and their livestock.[135]
In 1929, J. Russell Smith, emeritus Professor of Economic Geography at Columbia University, published "Tree Crops – A Permanent Agriculture" which stated that crop-yielding trees could provide useful substitutes for cereals in animal feeding programs, as well as conserve environmental health.[136]Toyohiko Kagawa read and was heavily influenced by Smith's publication and began experimental cultivation under trees in Japan during the 1930s. Through forest farming, or three-dimensional forestry, Kagawa addressed problems of soil erosion by persuading many of Japan's upland farmers to plant fodder trees to conserve soil, supply food and feed animals. He combined extensive plantings of walnut trees, harvested the nuts and fed them to the pigs, then sold the pigs as a source of income. When the walnut trees matured, they were sold for timber and more trees were planted so that there was a continuous cycle of economic cropping that provided both short-term and long-term income to the small landowner.[136] The success of these trials prompted similar research in other countries. World War II disrupted communication and slowed advances in forest farming.[136] In the mid-1950s research resumed in places such as southern Africa. Kagawa was also an inspiration toRobert Hart, who pioneered forest gardening in temperate climates in the sixties in Shropshire, England.[137]
Livestock was formerly often considered part of the forest farming system. Now animals are typically excluded and agroforestry systems that integrate trees, forages and livestock are referred to assilvopastures.[138] Because forest farming combines theecological stability of natural forests with productive agriculture systems, it is considered to have great potential for regenerating soils, restoring ground water supplies, controlling floods and droughts, and cultivating marginal lands.[139]
Forest farming methods may include thinning of overstocked tree stands; integrated entries to accomplish thinning so that systemic shock is minimized; and interactive management to maintain a cross-section of healthy trees and shrubs of all ages and species. Physicaldisturbance to the surrounding area should be minimized.[140]
Forest gardens are probably the world's oldest form of land use and most resilient agroecosystem. They originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions. ... Robert Hart adapted forest gardening for the United Kingdom's temperate climate during the 1980s.
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