Agroforestry Futures

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UK nature-based solutions, such as tree planting, must engage with the agricultural sector, given that agriculture usesmore than 70 per cent of the land in the UK and is a major emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Meeting the UK's treeplanting targets and reducing agricultural GHG emissions may require converting current agricultural land to alternativeland-uses. Agroforestry, where trees are deliberately combined with agriculture on the same piece of land, is onealternative land-use that maintains food production, but which can also drive down GHG emissions, deliver key ecosystemservices, and create and improve (rural) livelihoods. Agroforestry supports several goals not only relevant to Net Zero, butfor the UK government's 25 Year Environment Plan and Clean Growth Strategy. However, the environmental and societalbenefits of agroforestry can only be realized through widespread adoption by key stakeholders, including farmers and landmanagers. The overall objective of the AF Futures project is to co-develop strategies to overcome barriers to, identifyfacilitators of, and increase opportunities for agroforestry practices in different UK contexts. Research focused onunderstanding the similarities in preferences and perceived challenges identified by different stakeholder groups, as well ashow these might be addressed in local and national contexts will be conducted with AF futures, using a multidisciplinaryapproach. Integration of the natural, social and economic, sciences and arts and humanities is central to activities withinAF Futures. Research addressing how regulatory structures, economic incentives, socio-economic drivers and impacts,and agronomic intervention shape agroforestry practices will be integrated through different disciplinary lenses. The artsand humanities will be used to create visual transitions from past representations of agroforestry to agroforestry futures,which integrate socio- economic outcomes and future biodiversity and ecosystem services, if adoption of different particularagroforestry approaches occurs.