EURAF Policy Briefing #35 is produced jointly by EURAF, and the AgoForAdapt and DigitAF Projects.. The report gives a detailed description of agroforestry policies and practices in France, outlining how the intentional integration of trees with crops or livestock is supported by national frameworks and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)....

EURAF: Informe de Politica #44 (v4), impulsado por LIFE AgroForAdapt actualiza una revisión previa de las políticas relacionadas con los sistemas agroforestales en el Plan Estratégico de la PAC española. Esta nueva versión añade secciones sobre políticas medioambientales más allá de la PAC, incluyendo el Marco de Certificación de Absorciones de...

Policy Briefing #20 (v5) updates the previous version (25.8.25) in response to the DGCLIMA public consultation on the draft Carbon Farming Delegated Act (22.1.26 - 19.2.26). Comments are provided on definitions, scope, baselines, additionality, sustainability, monitoring tools, permanence, and geospatial coordinates of agroforestry.  A standard typology of 8 agroforestry and...

Policy Briefing #30-v3 updates our previous recommendations on the wording of the draft EU Forest Reproductive Material (FRM) Regulation. It discusses the agreed opinion of Parliament and Council before the start of Trialogue discussions this autumn with the Commission.   Parliament´s amendments clarify that the FMR should apply agroforestry (as...

Policy Briefing 64-v1 explores the interaction between agroforestry and the EU´s sustainability and  water policy resilience goals. It emphasizes the role of a mosaic tree-cover in sustainable water management, and the importance  of agricultural trees in enhancing soil water infiltration, reducing runoff on slopes, and increasing water quantity in streams....

Policy Briefing #68 (v1) gives approaches to the quantification of agroforestry and woody landscape features in the EU, based upon open access to Member States' Geospatial Aid Application (GSAA) and Land Parcel Information System (LPIS) data - with harmonised coding (Lawson, Muraru & Kay 2024) of crops, land uses and...

Briefing #18 (v5) adds (p6 onwards) information on the Commission Notice providing “Guidance on a framework for developing methodologies to monitor high-diversity landscape features pursuant to Article 14(7) of the Nature Restoration Regulation”. We conclude that this 20-page note could have been avoided if EURAF´s advice had been followed and...

EURAF Policy Briefing #71 (v1) is a response from EURAF to the Commission´s consultation on its Multiannual Financial Framework. It is stressed that Forestry and agroforestry have received very little support historically from the CAP, and in the new MFF the silos of funding and thinking between forestry and agriculture...

Policy Briefing #70 v2 considers the impact of the removal of the GAEC8 landscape feature area targets by the 14/5/24 CAP Simplification Regulation (2024/1468).  In principle, the replacement of the “stick” approach in the original GAEC8, with the “carrot” of additional eco-scheme funding was commendable.  However, broad-brush country-level statistics (R.34,...

These recommendations support the role of agroforestry in EU voluntary carbon-farming schemes and were dicussed at the 2nd Europan Carbon Farming Summit in Dublin on March 5-7 2024. Use of CAP eco-schemes, investment measures and agri-environment-climate measures during the first 5 years of agroforestry plantations can kick-start the adoption of...

Policy Briefing 66 (v1) describes the clear benefits which agroforestry systems have for biodiversity and the protection of ecosystems. But how can these be demonstrated in carbon farming projects, without a monitoring complexity and timescale which makes the projects uneconomic? Biodiversity was the only one of the six “sustainability” areas...

Policy Briefing #62 (v2) points out the significant simplification introduced by the Commission on 26.2.25.  This simplification should be read in conjunction with the (v1) summary below of corporate sustainability reporting requirements introduced or proposed by the EU Commission, including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Corporate Sustainability Due...

Policy Briefing 63 (v2) adds a final section to version 1 responding to the Commission´s "Vision Agriculture and Food" (19.2.2025 COM(2025) 75 final).  EURAF is very disappointed that this vision did not not mention agricultural trees or agroforestry. There remains a tendency for some policymakers to view agriculture and forestry in...

EURAF Policy Briefing #28 v3 responds to the Commission's latest report on the Sustainable Finance Initiative (aka the Taxonomy Regulation) and forms EURAF´s submission to a consultation which closes on 5th February 2025.  Agriculture was included in the original recommendations (2022) of the "Platform for Sustainable Finance", but was not...

EURAF Policy Briefing 34 (v1) is part of a series summarising policy incentives and disincentives for agroforestry in EU Member States.  It gives the definition of agroforestry in Finland and the possible role of ecoschemes, investment measures and agri-environment climate measures in its support. It considers whether agroforestry data is...

Policy Briefing #1 (v4) slightly updates the EURAF Agroforestry Typology.  EURAF recommends that the eight agroforestry practices used on agricultural land should be identified as land uses in the Land Parcel Identification Systems (LPIS) systems of Member States: 1) wood-pasture, 2) alley-cropping, 3) alley-coppice, 4) food-forests, 5) orchard-cropping, 6) orchard-grazing,...

Policy Briefing #15 (v5) welcomes the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), noting that it excludes current areas of agriculture and agroforestry. However the EUDR Guidelines place too much faith in the ability of satellite data to distinguish forests from agriculture.  We therefore stress the importance of land-use and cadastral registers, and...

Policy Briefing #69 (v1) was produced as an input to a discussion paper from DGAGRI on “Governance and Performance of the CAP”, circulated to the CAP Civil Dialogue Group technical meeting on 12.4.24. Version 2 updates most sections. Discussion on the Forest Monitoring Regulation stresses the need to use national...

Policy Briefing #17 (v4) considers the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance and coherence of the 2023 LULUCF Regulation and concludes: a) that emissions reporting and targets should be integrated across the land sector in an "Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use" metric - as has been recommended by IPCC since 2006, and...

Informe político #44 presenta un análisis de la formulación de los sistemas agroforestales (SAF) en el Plan Estratégico de la PAC español 2023-27 (PEPAC), y su consideración en otros planes y normas nacionales y autonómicas relacionadas. El PEPAC establece un máximo de 100 árboles/ha para que los terrenos agrícolas mantengan...

Policy Briefing #8 (v4) reflects the revised text of the EU Regulation for a Carbon Removals Certification Framework (CRCF). It a) summarises current estimates of the carbon sequestration potential of agroforestry in Europe, b) provides a timeline and references for studies of carbon farming in the EU; c) considers how...

Policy Briefing #29 (v1) focuses on the flexibility allowed to Member States to define permanent grassland to “include other species such as trees and/or shrubs which produce animal feed”.  This option has not been selected by 15 administrations (AT, BE-F, CZ, DK, EE, HU, HR, LT, LU, LV, MT, NL,...

Policy Briefing #27 (v2) noted that  Agroforestry was mentioned in the Adaptation Strategy or Adaptation Plan of ONLY 11 Member States, despite extensive scientific literature on using agroforestry systems to help adapt agriculture and forestry to climate change. There is also a FAO guide on how to include both forestry...

Policy Briefing #26 is a contribution to the DG CLIMA consultation on 2040 climate targets. It suggests that, if the EU's target of 3 billion additional trees  by 2030 were planted in agroforestry systems at the density of 150 (50-400) trees/ha, with 1 million ha planted each year to 2050,...

The Sixth European Agroforestry Conference took place in Nuoro Sardinia from 16-20th May 2022.  This briefing offers easy access to the conference abstracts. These have been collated into 4 TOPICS and 13 SUBTOPICS.  Many of the abstracts are relevant to the European Green Deal, and to a range of agricultural,...

Policy Briefing #25 (v1) is provided as an input to the FAO review of monitoring and reporting methods for Trees Outside Forests to be used in 2030 Forest Resource Assessment (with the review scheduled for completion in 2025).  EURAF recommends greater coordination with the UNFCCC forest definitions and the move...

Policy Briefing #19 summarises changes in the Agricultural Block Exemption Rules (ABER) for State Aid to agriculture, forestry,  fisheries and aquaculture relevant to agroforetsry. Changes were published on 14.12.22 as Commission Regulation 2022/2472. This replaces Regulation 702/2014. EURAF particularly welcomes: a) the extension of funding to the restoration of existing...

Policy Briefing #21 collates the Landscape Features selected by Member States in their Strategic Plans for 2023-2027, and their dimensions.  All MS except FI and SE implement at least one of the options for hedges, trees in groups, trees in line, isolated trees and Forest margins, but the rules for...

Policy Briefing #22 (v1) collates the definitions of agroforestry included by all Member States in their CAP Strategic Plans.  Some are detailed and include minimum and maximum numbers of trees per hectare, but usually without a definition of “tree”.   Few of the definitions can lead to remotely-sensed identification of those...

Policy Briefing #24 welcomes approval of the “compromise amendments” to the COMENVI draft report (‘own-initiative procedure - rapporteur MEP Bernhuber, EPP/AT) on the “Sustainable Carbon Cycles Communication”.  The agreed text reinforces the importance of agroforestry and agroecological farming principles within carbon farming and stresses the need for targets to be...