20246801241753

New England's predominantly forested landscapes provides many important goods and services, including storing large amounts of carbon, supporting biodiversity and wildlife habitat, and sustaining local economies through timber products, maple syrup production, and recreational opportunities.

However, New England faces a critical challenge when it comes to food provisioning: as one of the most heavily forested, densely populated and agriculturally limited regions in the U.S., its nearly 15 million residents rely on food from outside the region to meet approximately 90% of their consumption needs. These conditions threaten the region's capacity to adapt to climate change, and to effectively respond to other major disruptions such as extreme weather events, pandemics, and gaps in the global food supply chain.

At the same time, New Englanders have shown growing demand for locally produced, sustainable, and nutritionally healthy foods. Meeting this demand may require converting the region's forests to agriculture, potentially diminishing the many societal benefits that forests provide.

Our project addresses this challenge by exploring the potential for agroforestry--the integration of trees with crops and/or livestock--to provide a climate-smart and sustainable strategy for both expanding agricultural production in New England while simultaneously promoting important forest-based goods and services--including climate adaptation and resilience to change.

Three agroforestry systems suitable for the New England landscape will be designed and tested as part of this project: silvopasture (combining trees, pasture, and livestock on the same unit of land), multistrata polycultures (integration of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous species to produce diverse products), and forest farming (cultivation of herbaceous, shrub, and small tree crops in the forest understory).

Research and demonstration sites will be established on 3 university and 12 cooperator farms and supported by ~50 case study sites with existing agroforestry systems. Measurements will be collected to determine the environmental, economic, and social benefits and tradeoffs of each agroforestry system.

Extension programs and resources will be developed to train professionals and other interested groups in agroforestry techniques, including the creation of the New England Agroforestry Training Program (NEAT), an agroforestry network, an agroforestry champion peer-to-peer mentoring program, an agroforestry transition decision-making map tool, and diverse technical assistance programs.

Educational programs will be implemented to engage diverse student populations in experiential learning opportunities, including a 4-H program for high school students, a food-forest program for grade 4-8 educators, and internships, courses, and seminars for university students.

Recruiting efforts for training and educational opportunities will target underserved communities, with several scholarships offered annually to support their participation.

Project outcomes include training over 100 participants in NEAT and over 900 participants in extension programs, leading to more than 200 new agroforestry adopters; engaging at least 40 educators, 80 high school students, and 800 university students in educational programs; and training 6 graduate students and 3 postdocs in agroforestry research and practice.

In the long term, we anticipate that this project will contribute to increasing local food production by 15% and annual carbon sequestration by 5M tons, will foster new agroforestry market opportunities, and will enhance New England's capacity to balance food production with the benefits that forests provide.

University System Of New Hampshire

NOT APPLICABLE

10.310 - Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI)

Institute of Bioenergy, Climate, and Environment (IBCE) [USDA - NIFA]

Durham, New Hampshire 03824-2620 United States

Single Zip Code

Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Sustainable Agricultural Systems (USDA-NIFA-AFRI-009802)