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Highlights • Agroforestry practices occupy less than 10% of the potential European area. • Agroforestry promotion should be simplified in the CAP. • Agroforestry can be linked to arable land, permanent grasslands and permanent crops as well as forestlands. Abstract Agroforestry is an integrated land use management that combines a woody component with a lower story agricultural production recognized as one of the most important tools to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The objective of this paper is to provide a categorization and extent of agroforestry practices linked to agricultural and forest lands at regional level and evaluate how are they promoted by the previous (2007–2013) and current CAP (2014–2020) with a special focus on climate change mitigation potential. Agroforestry occupies almost 20 million hectares in Europe, being silvopasture and homegardens the most extensively spread practices and forest farming not quantified. Agroforestry practices are promoted at European level but in a really complex form as more than 25 measures are implemented to enhance the existing 5 agroforestry practices (silvopasture, silvoarable, riparian buffer strips, forest farming and homegardens). Simplification of the number of measures to promote agroforestry practices is needed to better follow up the implementation and to evaluate and provide future policies more adapted at European levels. Huge potential climate change mitigation options should be focused on the use of silvopasture on forest lands to reduce forest fires and to increase the presence of the woody component on arable lands (silvoarable) but also on the promotion of forest farming and homegardens as forms to increase the use of short supply chains and to increase the connection of urban, periurban and rural areas within a bioeconomy and circular economy framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agroforestry is considered a sustainable form of land management that optimizes the use of natural resources (nutrients, radiation, water). Agroforestry is defined as the deliberate integration of woody vegetation with agricultural activities in the lower story. It provides a higher biomass production per unit of land, while providing more ecosystem services than woody-less agricultural lands, such as the reduction of soil erosion and nitrogen leaching, and increase carbon sequestration and landscape biodiversity. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the past and current European Union Common Agricultural policies aiming at promoting the afforestation or reforestation of lands, as the introduction of trees can be seen as a first step to carry out agroforestry practices in former agricultural or forest lands. Agroforestry was a traditional land use system in Europe before modern times. However, before the sixties land intensification and consolidation destroyed millions of trees all over Europe. On the contrary, some good examples of agroforestry promotion are found in Eastern European countries in order to reduce the effect of extreme events such as winds, flooding at the beginning and mid of the last century. In Western European countries, the introduction of trees in the land has been promoted by agroforestry, afforestation and reforestation at the end of the last century. Afforestation of agricultural lands have been the most successful CAP measure (over 1 million hectares) while agroforestry measures were not extensively adopted which may be explained by the funds associated to afforestation measure which compensated the losses of income 15 or 20 years in afforested lands. Agroforestry was poorly adopted in the CAP 2007–2013, having a better success in the CAP 2014–2020 due to the recognition of woody vegetation and the compensation of 5 years given for maintenance once agroforestry is established. However, policy rules ensuring Pillar I payment when agroforestry measure is adopted such as a management plans ensuring that maximum tree density (100 trees per hectare) is not reached, should be pursued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]