For practitioners

Farmers’ concerns include the technical feasibility of agroforestry systems, insight into the consequences and impact of choices made and recognition of values of agroforestry systems. Farmers face many challenges: soil and water conservation, pesticide and other inputs reduction, climate change adaptation and farm viability.

As agroforestry systems are complex systems whose performances are highly context-dependent, agroforestry is not a onesize-fits-all solution. Agroforestry systems need to be tailored to each farm’s local context and each farmer’s objectives.

Starting from the identified farmers’ challenges, DigitAF makes scientific and practical knowledge operational for farmers, foresters, landowners and farm advisors. They will be able to use this knowledge for agroforestry systems optimization (both design and management) and make informed decisions.

This will be done at two levels:

1. at individual level, in terms of challenges that farmers face. Individual challenges include workload organization, optimization of productivity, climate change adaptation, and improvement of natural pest control. Farmers will be provided with Decision Support System (DSS) and/or easy-to-measure indicators;
2. at system level, using a multi-criteria approach. Knowledge from different disciplines will be combined into multi-criteria hands-on tools for the design, assessment and management of agroforestry systems. In doing so, DigitAF ensures agroforestry systems are designed and managed to maximize farm profitability and production of ecosystem services.