BENEFITS OF MANAGING LIVESTOCK AND TREES TOGETHER: EXPERIENCES FROM THE TEMPERATE ZONE

Abstract

groforestry has been practised for thousands of years, ever since man first
started to clear forests for agriculture and to manage trees, food crops and livestock
on a particular area of land (Von Maydell, 1985). Most agroforestry systems involve
the integration of crops and trees, there are many fewer systems world wide which
have integrated livestock and trees (silvopastoral systems) consequently there has
been less focus on research for livestock-based agroforestry systems than for those
with crops (Sanchez, 1995). Another reason for the limited amount of research on
silvopastoral systems is that, in the so-called developed countries, there has been
considerable investment in research on separate agricultural and forestry systems,
focusing on improvement of the efliciency of production of food and fibre. This led
to the specialisation of fanning and forestry (von Maydell, 1995; Sheldrick &
Auclair, 2000) oflen based upon single-species agricultural and forestry systems. In
the last 20 years or so, however, there has been a small shifi in research funding