Frequently Asked Questions
What is Agroforestry?
Agroforestry is the agricultural practice of integrating trees and other large woody perennials into farming systems and into the agricultural landscape. As envisioned by Eco Ranchos, agroforestry is a dynamic, ecologically-based natural resource management practice that diversifies production, increases biodiversity, and reclaims degraded agricultural land for increased social, economic, and environmental benefits.
What are the benefits of Agroforestry?
The intentional integration of agricultural and forestry-based land-use systems provides multiple benefits that collectively contribute to agro-ecosystem sustainability. Agroforestry can help address these and other issues by creating favorable microclimates with increased soil fertility, lower temperatures in the summer, warmer temperatures in the winter, decreased evaporation and transpiration, increased water-retention made possible by the improved soil structure, self-fertilizing systems through leaf-drop, increased bio-diversity and therefore increased resiliency to change or disturbance, biological pest and weed control, and reduced exposure to wind. Agroforestry also promises both short and long term diverse revenue streams. Other than agricultural or forestry products, such income can be generated from carbon credits, payments for ecosystem services, and other conservation incentives. Combining agriculture with forestry is a solution multiplier.
Agroforestry practices have been shown to provide benefits in many settings:
Economic Benefit: Provides income from trees and their products, while allowing for annual income from crop and livestock production. Improves crop yield and quality.
Carbon sequestration and storage: Sequesters large amounts of carbon in trees, shrubs and soil across a large land base.
Pest management: Provides habitat for beneficial insects and birds. Presents a physical barrier that interrupts pest cycles.
Soil conservation: Reduces loss of soil organic matter, nutrients, and soil particles.
Streams and Lakes: Protects water quality by intercepting sediments and agricultural chemicals. Reduces streambank erosion and improves aquatic habitat.
Water Conservation: Reduces evaporation and plant transpiration, beneficially distributes snowmelt, and protects riparian zones from agricultural runoff.
Wildlife Habitat: Provides food, cover, nesting sites, and travel lanes (“wildlife corridors”).
Livestock: Protects livestock from harsh climate, improves animal health, and lowers feed costs. Provides annual income from grazing. Moderates noise and odor from animal operations.
Aesthetics: Provides plant diversity, wildlife habitat and recreational corridors.
Energy Conservation: Reduces energy costs associated with farm operations.
Perhaps first and foremost, is the urgent need to transition to more sustainable forms of agriculture. Our current system of mass production, relying primarily on vast monocultures requiring massive inputs of energy, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and water, is not only unsustainable, but now threatens our survival. Not only is modern industrial agriculture wholly dependent on cheap oil, it is destructive of ecosystems and communities. With the convergence of climate change, peak oil and water scarcity, our food system is highly vulnerable and fragile.
But, sustainable agriculture not only means food production needing less inorganic inputs and energy, but also agricultural systems that are sufficiently complex, and therefore have enough diversity, to be resilient and adaptive in the face of the inevitable disturbances brought on by climate change.
Why Paulownia-based Agroforestry?
Climate change is no longer preventable. While there is still time to mitigate some of the worst consequences, the current levels of greenhouse gases, that will be latent in the atmosphere for decades, are now altering, and will continue to alter, our climate. We are at the peak of the production of cheap oil, and many creditable studies believe that we are already past the peak. Fresh water is becoming a scarce resource, and may soon be more precious than oil. Predicted changes in climate will only exacerbate the water shortages in many, if not most, of our major food producing regions.
But we need to do more than reduce emissions, reduce our dependence on oil, and conserve water. We need to sequester excess atmospheric carbon by the gigatons, rebuild our soils, and restore, as much as possible, our ecosystems upon which we depend for survival. We must go beyond current notions of “sustainability.” We need a restorative economy. A restorative economy has not yet been designed. While our attention is diverted to possible high-tech fixes, the real challenge is one of “systems-design.” We don’t need new technology, just social innovation, private investment,a favorable and stable regulatory environment, and the political will.
The changes wrought by climate change, peak oil and water shortages are being felt now, and will only accelerate. The time frame for potential catastrophic change is now in decades, if not a single decade. We need the vast amount of wealth that is represented by private capital to be unleashed to build a restorative economy. Unfortunately, much of the private investment is mired in a linear, short-term view and addicted to quick, high returns that are simply unsustainable. For those investors ready to push forward, the current regulatory system is unstable and unsupportive of such change. We need some bridging mechanism to allow this transition to proceed. Paulownia-based agroforestry systems are such a transitional mechanism. The fast growth of quality timber and biomass combined with the restorative capabilities of the Paulownia tree, along with its superior intercropping capacity, makes it an ideal agricultural systems component as it can be both a foundation of restorative agriculture in the time frame ecologically required, and create financial returns at the rate and in the time frames presently required by private investment.
Is Paulownia an invasive species?
There is a general belief that Paulownia is an invasive species. While experienced growers of Paulownia know this is not true, this belief is impeding the full use of this remarkable floral solution to many of our most pressing problems. There are 23 species of Paulownia, of which 7 are the most common. Of all these species, only one, P. Tomentosa, is on any invasive species list. However, many people simply lump all species together and unfortunately avoid all species of Paulownia
While this finding of invasiveness of a single species is apparently founded on very limited anecdotal evidence, and not any carefully controlled study, and we doubt that P. Tomentosa itself is truly invasive, Eco Ranchos does not utilize this species. Eco Ranchos supplies high-quality genetics for P. Fortunei, P. Kawakamii, and P. Elongata. These species have been successfully grown throughout the United States and internationally. For more information, please contact us.
Is growing Paulownia forestry or farming?
Growing Paulownia for commercial timber production is 100% a farming activity up until the day the trees are harvested. This is referred to as plantation timber production or plantation tree farming, and is much like farming peaches or avocados. To achieve optimum results in relatively short rotations, timely and very specific cultural practices must be implemented. Once the butt log is harvested, then that part of the tree --- the most profitable component --- becomes a forest product. The balance of the remaining biomass after harvesting the butt log can be utilized in many different ways, including being classified as either agricultural or forest waste.
I am already an experienced grower/orchardist. Why do I need technical assistance?
If, for example, you are a successful almond grower, you have many general farming skills, and you also have a set of very specific skills and know-how in order to farm almonds. If you wanted to diversify and also grow --- let’s say --- peaches or apricots, then you would need to learn a different set of cultural practices. With a large commercial investment one cannot afford to learn by trial-and-error since early mistakes could go unnoticed for years and possibly make the difference between a profit and break-even, or worse. It would be like building a house, and after using it for a few years, you discover the foundation was not designed and built to properly support the house.
If Paulownia is such a good idea, why hasn’t already been done?
Paulownia timber plantations do exist in China (for the past 2600 years), in Australia, some plantations in New Zealand, Brazil and Uruguay, and in Southeastern United States. However, the reasons for its slow development in the United States include the following:
A. It is generally assumed that the United States has plenty of forests and plenty of timber, and that the raw material for our wood products is just not an issue in the US like it is in many other countries.
B. Farmers do not historical see themselves as loggers involved in marketing lumber. Likewise, the loggers and the lumber marketers traditionally have not specifically farmed wood. Lumber producers do not have the infrastructure (farm implements, tractors, irrigation systems, etc.) needed to farm wood producing trees. Historically, these two segments of our economy have not been interrelated. Neither sector has seen themselves as agroforesters, nor do they likely understand the concept.
C. A great disservice has been done by some over-zealous tree sellers and by a disproportionate number of fraudulent promoters claiming magical growth rates, extremely high planting densities, and unimaginable market prices for the wood. Once investors discover they have been had, they run away telling anyone who will listen that this agroforestry is not a good investment. But it is not the tree that has failed, but the human factor; the unscrupulous promoters that were out for the fast buck.