The life of small and medium-sized farmers is not easy, with long hours, hard work and often an ungrateful reward. They encounter many difficulties in their efforts to feed Chileans; some of which are:
High cost of inputs
“Industrial” seeds
Agrochemicals
Defensives
Pass
Health problems
High exposure to harmful chemicals
High risk due to low diversification
Monocultures
High risk of losing the entire crop due to weather conditions or pests
When everything goes well, low market prices
Soil degradation
Nutrient depletion
Compaction
Little life in the soil
Poor water retention and penetration
Organic agroforestry production can solve many of these problems, but…
What is agroforestry?
Agroforestry is an activity that encompasses agriculture and forestry production, optimizing the level of production considering not only the available area, but also the volume and time, in addition to providing an important environmental service such as biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
How does Agroforestry work?
There is no specific recipe for Agroforestry, so technically any polyculture that include australia business email list s some forest species could be called Agroforestry. However, the greatest benefits of this type of cultivation come with biodiversity, since the common pests and diseases of monoculture are reduced by having a good structure of fauna that manage themselves naturally. In addition, working with various species reduces the risk of the business for the farmer, since if the climate is not conducive to good avocado production, it could be conducive to grapes, for example.
Another of the great benefits of agroforestry is that the fruits of work and investment begin to be obtained from the first month, with the fast-cycle vegetable species, followed by other medium-cycle vegetables, which can be replanted until the fruit and forest species are already in the productive stage. And finally, after years, the production of wood from the forest species is obtained.
This type of cultivation incorporates the natural ecological succession stages of the natural regeneration process of flora, which with our help is accelerated and strategically directed towards species with commercial value.
Each species has a different height and different lighting needs. Let’s imagine a forest where we have trees with very tall crowns, others that are medium-sized and others that are shorter. In this way, nature maximizes its photosynthetic capacity by taking advantage of the “volume” of the forest and not just the area (with trees of the same size, as is done in monocultures). Thus, agroforestry imitates this characteristic of nature by planting species that will not compete for the same space or the same light.
In addition, in an agroforestry system, the time cycles of the different species are used, for example:
In a commercial lettuce monoculture, lettuce is usually planted in rows with a space of 30 cm between each lettuce. In an agroforestry system, we would increase this space a little, leaving the lettuce every 40 cm, but we would plant tomatoes, cabbage, fruit and forest trees in between, and we could also plant carrots or beets on the sides. We can do this because the first to grow is the lettuce, which can be harvested after a month, and once the lettuce is harvested, it leaves space for the cabbage and tomato to continue growing, and so as we harvest, the maintenance of the rest of the crop is paid for, providing the farmer with food security and a less risky business.
Principles of Syntropic Agroforestry:
Always keep the soil covered with organic matter.
Fast-growing trees or plants should be planted to prune them, and this material should be used to cover the ground.
The soil, when covered, manages to maintain humidity for longer and the microorganisms that decompose the material are not killed by the sun's rays.
This material decomposes, improving soil conditions and nutrition over time.
Respect the ecological succession and lighting needs of each species.
Instead of competing with each other, plants complement each other, increasing productivity and allowing for healthy crops without the use of pesticides.
Optimization of resources used (space, water, light, work).
This also allows us not to sacrifice profitability by not having the capacity to invest for years without receiving income.
Organic production.
The system itself, with its biodiversity, controls pests without the need to use pesticides.
Lower input costs (fertilizers, pesticides), since the soil is nourished by the organic matter generated in the system.