The results of the Wood-Pasture Project are now available in the final report. The German Federal Environmental Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, DBU) funded this first comprehensive biocultural assessment of wood-pastures in Europe (reference number 37480; project duration: 01 January 2022 – 30 June 2025). Two working groups from Babeș-Bolyai University and IfaS, involving up to

Last week, the AFaktive team installed monitoring sensors at the farms of Diessens Broek and Hofkamer in the Netherlands. The installation of soil moisture sensors and a weather station was based on the maps and transects planned by AFaktive partner FITT and was carried out with the devices and experience of partner Royal Eikelkamp. The

Given the practice-oriented and farmer-centred AFaktive approach, the collaboration with the project farms encompasses different steps to ensure a water efficient and farm-adapted agroforestry system. Typically, in a first “scoping meeting”, the AFaktive team discusses with the famers the characteristics of the farm and its water vulnerabilities (e.g. field prone to erosion, drought, flooding, etc.).

There is an increasing awareness that natural solutions can be effective tools to counteract or mitigate problems caused by climate change and an intensive land use system. Nowadays, a crucial challenge for farmers is the occurrence of floods and drought, sometimes even on the same field. Agroforestry is a natural way to reduce runoff risks

La Ferme des Marnières in Wallonia La Ferme des Marnières is an organic vegetable gardening farm located in Ohain (Lasne), close to Brussels. The farm is established on a continuous 9 ha land which used to be cultivated with maize after being a grassland for years. The main revenue of the farm is the vegetable

On the 2nd of December, environmental and green officers from more than 30 municipalities in West Flanders visited Inagro’s agroforestry demonstration plot. Interest in this innovative farming practice was high. Researcher Willem Van Colen explained in more detail the setup of the demonstration plot and ongoing research. A key topic was the future business model

Despite agroforestry being integrated more frequently into strategies, policies and funding, the policy framework for its widespread practical adoption remains inadequate. This is particularly true regarding AFaktive core topic, the intersection between agroforestry and water management. As a matter of fact, the legal and policy frameworks for land use and water management are, in most

Agroforestry systems bring nature conservation and environmental protection to the cultivated landscape if WE manage to establish these crops on farms. This was the topic of discussion on 1st December 2025 at the Hanover Chamber of Agriculture: DeFAF e.V. (MODEMA project) and 3N Kompetenzzentrum Niedersachsen e.V. jointly organised the conference ‘Agroforestry systems as production-integrated compensation

For the third time after the interventions of the Head of Department Thomas Anton & Managing Director Prof. Dr. Peter Heck, the IfaS institute (Trier University of Applied Sciences) contributed to the highly successful event series ‘Green Heat for Villages and Cities’ organised by the Agency for Renewable Resources (Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe e.V., FNR) with

The extremely fruitful collaboration between IfaS and Babes-Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Environmental Engineering) on the Transylvanian Wood Pasture project has resulted in the publication of another key research article in People and Nature as a scientific reference for the entire project (funded by the DBU Foundation): link to the article