Toxics Alert: Agro-forestry the latest buzz

A new edition of "North American Agroforestry: An Integrated Science and Practice," published by the American Society of Agronomy adds to the excitement and builds upon the science. Agroforestry can create greater economic value, enhance biodiversity, and improve soil, water and air quality on many sites.

Agroforestry is an integrated approach of using the interactive benefits from combining trees and shrubs with crops and/or livestock. It combines agricultural and forestry technologies to create more diverse, productive, profitable, healthy and sustainable land-use systems.

From large-scale installations of riparian buffers to family-scale forest farming, agroforestry is a technology that has truly "come of age." According to the authors, there is a willingness to adopt agroforestry practices more so than ever before.

Agroforestry provides many opportunities to meet the needs of landowners and natural resource professionals while keeping the family farm economically viable and the environment in which we live healthy.

"The American Society of Agronomy is proud to publish this truly interdisciplinary work that explains the integration of production agriculture, natural resource management, and forest production technologies into systems that enhance productivity and natural resource conservation. I am certain that millions of hectares of land and millions of people will benefit from the knowledge brought together in this book," says Marcus M. Alley, president of the American Society of Agronomy.

REPORT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Agro-forestry the latest buzz

Source: Seed Daily, Date: , 2009