Agroforestry network in Tuscany
The operational group (OG) NEWTON “NEtWork per l’agroselvicoltura in TOscaNa” aiming at the promotion of agroforestry practices in Tuscany as strategy for the sustainable agricultural intensification (EIP-AGRI Agroforestry Focus Group – Final Report, 2018). In the next years, sustainable cropping systems will mitigate climate change and will be also resilient to changed condition, in order to reach the objectives of economic and environmental sustainability. Sustainable agricultural strategies have to contribute to the Paris Agreement – COP21 which fix the objective to reduce by 40% greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990.
This objective will be reached through the transfer of knowledges and the application and dissemination of the innovations. The specific objectives of NEWTON are:
- to create a regional network of knowledges for the agroforestry systems
- to develop a network of the innovations through case studies in private or public farms
- to disseminate knowledges and innovative strategies with a new web-platform for the agroforestry systems in Tuscany
- to valorize the agroforestry productions.
Agricultural activities generated 470.6 M tons of CO2 equivalent in the EU-28, approximately 10% of the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to which Italian agriculture accounts for 7.5% (Eurostat 2012); about 50% of the GHG is due to animal breeding. Agricultural and livestock activities are at the center of serious environmental problems and urgently require the implementation of innovative and sustainable production systems. To contribute to the commitment of the COP21 agreement in Paris to reduce GHG levels by at least 40% by 2030 compared to 1990, agricultural production will have to use "intensively sustainable", mitigating and resilient systems such as AgroSelviColturali (ASC) in order to balance the sector's environmental problems by promoting adequate levels of economic sustainability.
The proposal aims to apply and spread agro-forestry (ASC) in an innovative key, that is the set of production and management practices that integrate the cultivation of tree or shrub species with agricultural crops and / or the breeding of animals in the same plot. In the past, these systems were an integral part of the Italian and Tuscan landscape, in particular; complex and resilient systems that guaranteed the multifunctionality of the territory and the diversification of production. However, this complexity, simplified by the introduction of intensive agriculture which caused the loss of numerous ecosystem services, is now an innovation to combat climate change (carbon storage, weather control, improvement of the microclimate, soil fertility, biodiversity conservation) as demonstrated by numerous European and worldwide studies (www.agroforestry.eu and www.worldagrforestry.org).
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