Discovering Profits in Unlikely Places:
Agroforestry Opportunities for Added Income
3. Agroforestry Practices for Profit
The following are descriptions of six agroforestry
practices that can be used to produce income and conserve natural
resources. All use trees, shrubs, grasses, and herbaceous plants to
produce commercially valuable products, helping to improve your bottom
line.
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Windbreaks
- Windbreaks are agroforestry systems in which
trees and/or shrubs are planted in widely spaced rows to minimize
negative impacts from excessive wind.
- Field windbreaks are used to protect row crops
and livestock from damaging wind and to control wind erosion.
- They can also function as living snow fences to
disperse snow more evenly across cropland, increase soil moisture in dry
areas, and prevent drifting over roads and driveways.
- Multiple row windbreaks of hybrid poplar or
cottonwood (known as timberbelts), can protect crops from wind until
mature trees can be harvested for wood products (10-15 years). Other
fruit, nut or decorative floral-producing plants can be used in
windbreaks to provide income.
- Farmstead and community shelterbelts protect
homes from wind. They can help save household heating energy, manage
snow drifts, provide products for use by the community, and create a
more pleasant place to live.
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Forest Farming
Forest farming is producing specialty crops under
a tree canopy.
Forest farming can provide annual or periodic
income either before, or as an alternative to, harvesting the trees for
wood products.
Potential understory crops are those that grow
naturally under forest conditions or are adapted to shade, and that can be
sold for medicinal, ornamental, handicraft, or culinary uses.
Shade-tolerant crops such as ginseng, decorative
ferns, goldenseal, black or blue cohosh, or shiitake mushrooms can be
intensively cultivated under a forest cover that has been modified to
provide the correct level of shade.
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Alley Cropping
 This practice mixes trees, planted in single or
grouped rows, with agricultural, horticultural, or forage crops that are
cultivated in the wide alleys between tree rows.
Alley cropping can be a way to convert marginal
cropland to a high value woodland while continuing to earn income from
annual crops during the early years of the project, or to protect
sensitive crops such as vegetables and fruits from wind.
Annual crops (row crops, forages, vegetables)
cultivated between rows of trees provide extra income before nut or fruit
trees bear or early in the long-term timber rotation.
High-value hardwoods (oak, walnut, ash), fruit and
nut trees, fast-growing trees (hybrid poplar and cottonwood), or fruit,
nut, or floral producing shrubs are potential species for alley
cropping.
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Riparian Forest Buffers Riparian buffers are strips of perennial
vegetation (trees/shrubs/grass) planted between cropland or pastures and
streams, lakes, wetlands, ponds, or drainage ditches.
They reduce runoff and non-point source pollution
from agricultural activities on adjacent lands by trapping sediment,
filtering excess nutrients, and degrading pesticides.
They can also stabilize streambanks, protect
floodplains and enhance wildlife habitat. Buffer strips can be planted
with trees, shrubs, grass and herbaceous plants that produce harvestable
products such as pulpwood, fruits, nuts, seed, or floral products.
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Woody Crop Plantations
 Woody crop plantations are larger areas of trees or shrubs often
planted in a block.
Plantations of woody crops can be added to the
farm enterprise to increase income and biological diversity, and to help
address special concerns such as disposal of animal wastes and filtering
irrigation runoff (recycled from ditches).
Plantings can be designed for conditions and needs
of a specific piece of land.
While woody crop plantations are not considered
agroforestry in the traditional sense (because they do not provide
tree/annual crop interactions), they can provide a mix of tree-based
conservation and production benefits when used as part of a whole farm
diversification strategy.
Possibilities for woody crop plantations include
short rotation woody crops, nut and fruit groves, and Christmas trees.
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Silvopasture
This practice combines trees with forage (pasture
or hay) and livestock production.
The overstory trees provide shade and wind shelter
for grazing livestock, and yield additional income when the trees or tree
products are harvested.
Silvopasture is different from traditional forest
or pasture/range management systems because it is intentionally created
and intensively managed.
Branches and leaves of some trees can be pruned
from the trees and fed directly to livestock.
Some nut and fruit orchards may be carefully
grazed to produce income before and while trees are bearing.
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Produced by Communication and Educational Technology Services, University of
Minnesota Extension.
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