Q&A: How the Savanna Institute is Helping Agroforestry Thrive in the Midwest | Article

Across the country, there is a significant opportunity for farms and ranches to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also adapting to climate change impacts through sustainable agricultural practices. One of those practices is called agroforestry, which involves integrating trees and shrubs with crops or livestock. Agroforestry provides numerous benefits, from reducing erosion to providing habitat for pollinators.

The Savanna Institute is a nonprofit organization working to promote agroforestry in the Midwest through research, education, and outreach. The Institute operates demonstration farms, hosts apprentices, and provides technical assistance to agricultural producers to help them implement agroforestry practices. EESI spoke to Renee Gasch, communications manager at the Savanna Institute, to discuss this work and the policies that bolster agroforestry.

EESI: What is agroforestry, and what are some of the climate and environmental benefits?

Gasch: Agroforestry describes time-tested farming methods that integrate trees, crops and animals to create exceptionally productive and resilient ecosystems. Farmers have long used practices common in agroforestry to reduce erosion, such as planting trees as windbreaks along field edges or as riparian buffers along waterways. Agroforestry systems such as silvopasture, which involves growing forage and grazing livestock beneath a managed stand of trees, have immense potential as a climate solution. Trees on farmland can help regenerate soil, filter pollutants out of groundwater, and pull carbon dioxide—the most common greenhouse gas causing climate change—out of the atmosphere. There are a lot of environmental benefits to agroforestry, in addition to community and human benefits.

EESI: Can agroforestry also provide economic benefits for farmers?

According to the Land Institute, perennial plants—which can include grains, legumes, and vegetables—do not have to be reseeded or replanted every year. These plants provide climate change mitigation and adaptation benefits because they reduce the need for tillage and herbicide application, which can lead to improved soil structure and additional soil carbon sequestration.

Gasch: Right now, farmers with large monocultures of annual crops are vulnerable to drastic swings in commodity markets. Agroforestry systems offer more options for farmers to diversify and stabilize their farm income, for example, by allowing them to harvest multiple agricultural products from the same land area. Over the past 10 years, perennial crop income in the United States averaged an annual return of 12.2 percent on investment, compared to 4.5 percent for annual crops. Increased soil fertility and water quality also extend the benefits of perennial agriculture across generations. With agroforestry, farmers can both practice conservation and maintain production on their working lands without having to choose between the two.

EESI: Why does the Savanna Institute focus specifically on the Midwest?

Gasch: The Savanna Institute grew out of a collective of Midwestern farmers, scientists, and educators that came together around a farm kitchen table and started building a community to support agroforestry practitioners. Inspired by native savanna ecosystems that are highly productive and once covered much of the region, the Savanna Institute applies its theory of change locally in the Midwest to support farmers and communities in adding agroforestry back into the landscape. Because of its acres of agricultural land and vast freshwater resources, the Midwest is a target region for global climate solutions that draw down carbon and build flood resilience. We regularly learn from and share our learning with agroforestry farmers and researchers in other places in the United States and globally.

EESI: Are there synergies between agroforestry and other sustainable agriculture practices such as cover crops?

Gasch: Definitely. Since agroforestry is a form of perennial agriculture, it represents a transformational solution on the landscape: deep, persistent roots below ground, continuous cover aboveground, and absolutely minimal soil disturbance in between. Perennial pastures and forages, perennial grain crops, and orchards are other examples of this. Cover crops are a more incremental solution—they provide important protection to the soil, but their benefit to the climate is limited—unlike perennial crops like trees, cover crops release most of the carbon they capture back into the atmosphere when they die and decompose at the end of the season. The synergy of agroforestry with other forms of agriculture is that when you add trees to farming systems, you can accomplish much, much more for the climate.

EESI: How does the Savanna Institute work with farmers to help them adopt agroforestry?

Agroforestry in action on a Savanna Institute partner farm. Photo Credit: Savanna Institute

Gasch: The Savanna Institute conducts the research, education, tree crop development, and community-building necessary to exponentially grow the number of agroforestry farms across the Midwest, and to support their long-term success. We help interested farmers with the financial aspects by developing enterprise budgets, navigating cost-share opportunities, and providing technical support to design and manage the system long term. The organization works up and down the value chain on critical needs to make agroforestry a viable option for more farmers in the 21st century. Our wide-ranging work is done in close partnership with Midwestern farmers, scientists, educational institutions, government agencies and other nonprofits. We also manage demonstration farms throughout Wisconsin and Illinois—come visit us!

EESI: What steps must be taken for agroforestry to be adopted on a wider scale and on bigger farms? What federal or state programs provide technical or financial assistance to help farmers adopt agroforestry?

Gasch: The Savanna Institute believes that to scale up agroforestry, three areas need development: tree crops and their markets, agroforestry farming systems that integrate those tree crops, and stakeholder outreach and engagement that results in vibrant communities of practice. Midwestern farmers—like most people who naturally need to see it to believe it—are slow to adopt practices they have not seen demonstrated on the scale of a commercial farm. Savanna Institute’s demonstration farms across the Midwest are hubs for agroforestry that farmers can see, touch, and even taste.

The 2023 Farm Bill is an opportunity for the United States to invest more in agroforestry and its potential for positive impact on climate and rural economies. Funding is especially needed to expand technical support capacity for agroforestry in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its partners. Many conservation programs can prioritize and incentivize agroforestry, and that could be enhanced by changing policy to allow for perennial crop harvests on land in the Conservation Reserve Program.

More fundamentally, we need more support for agroforestry beyond conservation. As it stands, the Commodity Title of the Farm Bill incentivizes farmers to specialize in commodity monocultures and livestock systems that are highly efficient but also risk disruption. Agroforestry is by its nature diverse and integrated rather than specialized, and more resilient because of it. To level the playing field for agroforestry, we have to change risk management, credit, and price support systems in the Commodity Title of the Farm Bill. The escalating climate crisis and supply chain disruptions have opened people’s eyes to the vulnerabilities of over-specialized food and farming systems. The time for change to more resilient and climate-positive agriculture in the United States is now.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

For more on climate-friendly agriculture, check out EESI’s sustainable agriculture article series focusing on practices that provide climate adaptation and mitigation benefits.

Author: S. Grace Parker