Development of regional agroforestry systems in agriculture for climate-resilient and economically attractive grassland utilisation – EvA for short (Entwicklung von regionalen Agroforstsystemen in der Landwirtschaft für eine klimaresiliente und ökonomisch attraktive Grünlandnutzung)
For around 20 years, extreme water events (heavy rainfall and drought) have been increasing in the low mountain regions. The initial hypothesis of EvA was therefore: The establishment of agroforestry systems can reduce surface water runoff and erosion and thus minimise the damaging effects of these extremes. The project team identified a suitable farm – the Bannmühle – and a sponsor – the DBU – and thereby built up knowledge in and with practice: Together with the manager of the Bannmühle Hans Pfeffer, an agroforestry concept suitable for the location and the farm was developed based on Yeomans’ Keyline Design (1954) and implemented between 2020 and 2023.
From a practical point of view, the conversion to agroforestry systems raises economic, labour, ecological and legal issues, depending on local and individual circumstances. In order to be able to answer these questions in the reality of an agricultural operation, practical experience was collected and a scientific evaluation and basic survey were set up.
The final report documents the entire development and implementation process as well as the initial foundations for practical research at this unique location in Rhineland-Palatinate. This pioneering work to establish this pilot site is therefore also of great interest for agroforestry in Germany and beyond. Since 2023, some obstacles to the establishment of agroforestry systems have been removed in the CAP regulation for the 2023-2027 funding period, thus facilitating the implementation of further agroforestry systems. Building on this, the application-oriented sister projects AGROfloW and AFaktive were developed and launched with a large number of partners and new demonstration sites.
We would like to thank Hans Pfeffer and all partners for their successful collaboration and pioneering work, as well as the German Federal Environmental Foundation /Deutschen Bundesstiftung Umwelt for funding EvA.
Video about the EvA project (YouTube)
Copyright: IfaS