Redefining Agroforestry Systems Through Agtech

Land owners, farmers, business owners, and even corporations are no strangers to the benefits of agroforestry. For centuries, agroforestry systems have been created to help support any number of efforts for the environment, the economy, and the betterment of people in the area.

Today, these agroforestry systems are crucial to boosting the socioeconomic health of an area, providing jobs, food security, and clean water supply. In addition to that, agroforestry systems work to create landscapes that are at least somewhat resistant to the effects of climate change.

Agroforestry systems have long since changed the landscape — both physically and figuratively — of the areas they are created within. Despite their many benefits, implementing, maintaining, and expanding these systems doesn’t come without a set of challenges.

 Let’s take a closer look at what those challenges are and how the budding industry of agtech can provide solutions to them.

The challenges agroforestry systems are up against

Advanced modeling and forecasting for agroforestry systems is challenging.

While agroforestry systems have been used for centuries, they’re not reflective of every single ecosystem and potential use case. As Science Direct notes:

“The adequacy of existing agroforestry models for projecting climate change impacts is currently difficult to gauge. Unlike mainstream crop models, agroforestry models have only been used in a small number of climatic and environmental settings. They should therefore not be expected to contain accurate representations of the climate sensitivity of all system components. Much more validation and probably some improvements to the models are needed before climate change impact projections derived from them can be fully trusted.”

We’ve got plenty of data on other types of crop models — so much so that we can use it as a source of information to address other issues, like climate change — but agroforestry models are fewer and far between. Because there’s a significantly smaller sample size, we haven’t always had the tools and the means to forecast the impact these agroforestry systems will have in their respective areas. We also can’t apply that data to other types of climate, soil, and ecosystems.

There are economic and social implications of agroforestry.

While there are proven social, economic, and environmental benefits to agroforestry systems, there still tends to be an adoption issue primarily in the US. According to a finding from Penn State University,  

"In the United States, you can see agroforestry much more from an environmental point of view and the economic benefits — while important — are secondary," [Jacobson] said. "But in the tropics, you must have the economic benefits to make it work or farmers won't do it. Most only have an acre or two of land and they need all these products for their families to survive, so the trees are vital. That is an important distinction, I think."

There’s also a need to educate not only farmers, but land owners, Native American tribes, suburban homeowners, and more rural communities on the benefits that agroforestry systems can provide to their respective need cases. Within each of those communities, though, are unique social and economic implications that need addressing, funding and, in all cases, technology that works with these groups to implement agroforestry systems and target specific climate change opportunities.

 Technology has changed the way nearly every industry functions — and agroforestry is no stranger to those advancements. In the agriculture sector, it’s working to mitigate these challenges and improve landowner education.

How agtech is helping redefine agroforestry systems

In an effort to tackle challenges like forecasting the future of your farm — both its profit as well as its layout and mix of crops, biodiversity, trees, and other forms of vegetation — agtech has become an increasingly important solution for farmers, land owners, and businesses.

Not only is agroforestry its own subset of regenerative agriculture, which has time and time again proven to reverse the effects of climate change, it can also be profitable. As aforementioned, measuring that profit both short- and long-term has been a challenge until recently.

At Propagate, we created Overyield as the best agtech tool to help folks not only design agroforestry systems and other types of regenerative agriculture solutions within their acreage, but determine the profit and potential ROI of those solutions. We also help you better understand the labor, operational, and machinery costs associated with maintaining your agroforestry systems or any other crops you choose.

Overyield solves for those aforementioned challenges of agroforestry systems: namely, the above mentioned, like forecasting future growth and helping both traditional and non-traditional farmers and land owners see the social and economic value in creating these systems.

Agtech is changing the game

Want to learn more about Overyield and its game-changing solutions for regenerative agriculture? 

If you’re a farmer, land owner, small business, or a corporation looking to expand your crop types and increase profits, learn more.