EverGreen Agriculture, one form of agroforestry, is a transformational concept for the regreening of agriculture in the 21st Century. It is an affordable and accessible nature-based solution for regenerating degraded land, and for increasing household food production and cash income. This system addresses the global challenges of food security and rural poverty, land degradation, and the imperative for agriculture to adapt to and mitigate climate change.
EverGreen Agriculture is an intensive farming that integrates trees into crop and livestock production systems. These farming systems use both perennial and annual species (food crops and trees), maintaining a double–story cover throughout the year. It is part of the broader regreening approach with a focus on agricultural land, both private and communally held. It includes the following forms of agriculture involving trees:
EverGreen Agriculture (EVA) and, in particular, Farmer managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) represent low-cost scalable solutions to improve livelihoods and food security. These practices mitigate the impacts of a changing climate, and build the adaptive capacity of smallholder farming households to recover from shocks and manage stresses and risks.
In response to the developing global restoration agenda and building on the core strength of the Alliance, our focus on EverGreen Agriculture has broadened to include not only agricultural lands, but also rangelands and degraded forests. EverGreen Agriculture has evolved into EverGreening, which comprises a suite of complementary practices including Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), Pastoralist Managed Natural Regeneration (PMNR), and Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR).
More specifically, EverGreening takes the proven-effective practices of EverGreen Agriculture and expands their scope to include:
The integration of trees and shrubs into farming systems is critical in Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) approaches. They sustainably and reliably increase agricultural productivity and farm incomes, they build resilience to the effects of climate change, and they reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
By integrating trees into crop and livestock production systems, there is a reduced risk of wind damage to crops, higher localized humidity, as well as reduced solar radiation and canopy temperature.
Trees further enhance crop production through the recycling of nutrients and water from deeper soil layers, and the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen.
They provide nutritious food, improving dietary quality - particularly for women and children - whilst also supplying nutritious fodder for livestock, especially during the late dry season or during extended periods of severe nutritional stress.
Finally, trees are critical in providing a supply of fuel for household energy and are an economic asset - critical in times of food scarcity and to meet other basic needs, e.g. health care and education.