Search

Doutoramento em Engenharia Florestal e dos Recursos Naturais / Instituto Superior de Agronomia. Universidade de Lisboa Agroforestry integrates woody vegetation with crop and/or animal production. This combination can benefit from ecological and economic interactions that allow better use of natural resources and improved economic performance. But despite financial support offered through policy, the implementation of new agroforestry systems has not been widespread in the European Union. This thesis aimed to develop additional scientific knowledge on the potential of agroforestry systems in terms of productivity and environmental benefits. The method consisted in improving a bio-physical process-based model (Yield-SAFE) and an integrated bio-economic model (Farm-SAFE) and using both to model four different agroforestry systems in different edaphoclimatic conditions in Europe. Four different agroforestry tree-densities were compared to no-tree and tree-only monoculture alternatives. The results showed that: 1) in terms of productivity, the inclusion of trees in agricultural land increases the overall accumulated energy but the accumulated energy per tree decreases as the tree density of trees increases; 2) agroforestry options present a greater capacity of reducing soil erosion, nitrate leaching and increases the carbon sequestration; 3) agroforestry systems can act as more sustainable methods of food production and 4) options without trees are more interesting financially but these option are also the most polluting. And even though the consideration of a monetary valuation of the environmental services offered, agroforestry options would just become more interesting if there is a change on how public financial help is allocated to the sector. The findings of this work reflect what has been previously seen in scientific literature, particularly in terms of the capacity of agroforestry systems to be more productive than monoculture systems, whilst at the same time providing environmental benefits. However, relatively low profitability means that they still fail to attract farmers, the main agents of agroforestry uptake and currently, arable and forestry tend to receive higher subsidies making these land uses more attractive to farmers but considering environmental benefits would make agroforestry a more interesting option N/A

The Forage-SAFE model has been developed to better understand the impact of trees on the profitability of wood pastures. It assesses the daily balance between the demand for and production of forage to estimate an annual farm net margin. The model allows the modification of selected biophysical and financial parameters related to the tree, pasture and livestock components (such as tree cover density, carrying capacity and livestock species) which can be optimised to maximise net farm income. A case study in a dehesa wood pasture in South-western Spain was used to show the applicability of the model. The case study results showed that net margin was maximised at around 27% tree cover for a carrying capacity of 0.4 livestock unit per hectare from which 61% were ruminants and 39% Iberian pigs. The analysis also showed that high carrying capacities were positively correlated with tree cover profitability. This was accentuated as the proportion of Iberian pigs increased.

International audience

Submitted by Margarida Galamba (galamba@isa.utl.pt) on 2016-02-03T16:27:31Z No. of bitstreams: 1 REP-AGFORWARD.pdf: 7821260 bytes, checksum: 00a0ac3619a9b910f14210a6f2581c6d (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2016-02-03T16:27:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 REP-AGFORWARD.pdf: 7821260 bytes, checksum: 00a0ac3619a9b910f14210a6f2581c6d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-04

•Agricultural monocultures have societal costs •Role for agroforestry •Introducing AGFORWARD •Two case studies on the financial and economic benefits of agroforestry in Europe European Union’s Seventh Framework Program for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 613520

Submitted by Margarida Galamba (galamba@isa.utl.pt) on 2015-09-09T15:01:58Z No. of bitstreams: 1 REP-CEF-2-WP2_P_Traditional_Systems.pdf: 1098255 bytes, checksum: c403dffbf19289ee0e449bc3c6a5c4f4 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-09T15:01:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 REP-CEF-2-WP2_P_Traditional_Systems.pdf: 1098255 bytes, checksum: c403dffbf19289ee0e449bc3c6a5c4f4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-25

Submitted by Margarida Galamba (galamba@isa.utl.pt) on 2015-09-09T14:54:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 REP-CEF-2-WP2_P_Montado.pdf: 887637 bytes, checksum: 051a6aaf07e71d454a06f8d09954b4ca (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-09T14:54:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 REP-CEF-2-WP2_P_Montado.pdf: 887637 bytes, checksum: 051a6aaf07e71d454a06f8d09954b4ca (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-09-04