Silvopasture vs Agroforestry

Hi, everyone. Indri here from THINK-Research Team.

Today I had a meeting with an organization in Bali. They're from Astungkaraway. This was my second meeting with them. You can find the organization details in this link https://www.astungkaraway.com/. They're working on community development in organic farming implementation. Their vision is to boost or accelerate this organic farming transition by influencing the local communities (Subak in Bali).

In our previous meeting, we discussed the potential collaboration in agroforestry and agriculture activities. Today, we discussed a Subak in Bali who're working on agroforestry and planning silvopasture activities. So, if you're not familiar with land or farm management, let me write a brief description of agroforestry and silvopasture.

If you read our blogs, you can find that I wrote about paludiculture a few months ago (https://www.su-re.co/post/what-is-paludiculture). That practice is the farming practice in the peatland area. In this blog, I will write about farming or plantation practice in the 'normal land', I mean not in the wetland :)

In land management, there are some terms. Believe me or not, in my first month, I checked the description one by one to keep myself on track. I changed my mind from energy-oriented to be land-based oriented :p

Ok, let's start talking about agroforestry and silvopasture.

As we wrote several blogs about agroforestry, you will know the practice well (https://www.su-re.co/post/agroforestry-a-method-inherited-by-ancestors-in-bajawa, https://www.su-re.co/post/agroforestry-good-for-yields-environment-and-economic, https://www.su-re.co/post/agroforestry-and-organic-fertilizer-for-low-carbon-development). In simple words, agroforestry means planting trees on the agricultural land to intentionally grow and manage trees together with crops and or fodder in a system that aims to be ecologically, socially and economically sustainable. In su-re.co activities, we're working with the agroforestry farmers (coffee and cacao farmers).

So, the next one is, what is silvopasture? Silvopasture is a practice where agroforestry is implemented together with planting trees & forages and raising livestock. It is one of the most promising land practices for climate change mitigation. If we're talking about added value chain, circular economy, and social-economic-environmental benefits from one practice, silvopasture can be the solution.

Silvopasture is not a new thing. This is the ancient method of green farming. Silvopasture is one of the ancient techniques which our ancestors have used since ancient times. If we open history books, this method has been used to raise cattle since the roman age and was a trend in farming until the 20th century in many rural areas. After the industry and technology have been growing everywhere, this implementation has been decreasing. Many researchers, farmers, and other adopters have studied and practised this method, and in recent years, this farm practice has gained its popularity. The reason is to solve climate change issues. Many studies said that silvopasture for land management is the key to solve climate change by meeting the food demand (Earthbuddies, 2019).

Silvopasture implementation is one of the best policies for sustainable forest management and increased economic benefit for the communities in the forestry sector.

Development of silvopasture program is a good practice since there are some potential factors: (i) livestock sector has a potential contribution in reducing import value of agriculture products in Indonesia; (ii) silvopasture development would support the national self-sufficient on meat that is one of the Government targets in the food and agriculture sector; (iii) silvopasture development would support two fields of 10 prioritized industry clustering units (livestock development and processing of livestock products); and (iv) silvopasture would increase farmers' income (50-300%) compared to their income without livestock (Subarudi, 2010).

My question is, imagine if you have an area and you can apply silvopasture practice, what will you plant and raise?

Thank you for reading ^^