Before they cleared the fields. Now, small farmers across Africa grow millions of trees on their fields.

And then it can help against deforestation. It is incredibly important, because all over the world forests shrink when they are cleared to make way for, for example, new land, and this is both a climate and biodiversity disaster. In the African countries south of the Sahara, areas covered by forests have fallen by approximately one-sixth over the past three decades, but this also covers the large differences between the countries. – Here in Uganda, the forest areas are almost halved, says Lybæk. Poverty forces farmers close to the forest to exploit the resources in the forest in a non-sustainable way. But forest agriculture gives farmers an alternative. We will return to that. A weapon against hunger First, let’s take a closer look at forest agriculture, which can take many different forms: From farmers who have previously cleared the fields to allow local trees to return, to farmers who purposefully plant useful crops such as cocoa and coffee, fruit trees or timber trees . In Africa, it started as a movement driven by farmers in the large West African country of Niger, one of Africa’s poorest countries, which is largely covered by the Sahara desert, but with a savannah belt in the south of the country. Here, in the 1980s, the farmers began to plant trees on their fields again after the fields had been largely cleared of bushes and trees in the previous decades – it was about creating as much arable land as possible. But without the trees to provide shelter, hold the soil and to reach the nutrients deeper into the soil with their longer roots, the soil became less and less fertile and more cases of drought occurred. It contributed to famine and starvation in Niger in the 1960s and 70s. Attempts to plant plantations and import foreign trees failed – but then a few farmers stopped removing trees from their fields and allowed the local trees to return. It could be seen in their crops, and the method spread quickly in the country: Between 1980 and 2009, areas covered by trees in agriculture increased tenfold, research shows, and that means a minimum of 200 million extra trees – in Niger alone. Since then, a lot of research has been done on tree planting and agroforestry, which has spread to countries across the continent, and several governments from east to west have implemented agroforestry as their official agricultural and climate policy. Protecting the forest In Uganda, Verdens Skove is running its project to get 1,500 farmers to use forest agriculture as a way to protect the country’s rainforest, says Kristian Lybæk on the thread from Kampala. First, the trees can provide wood for cooking, so farmers don’t have to take from the forest to fuel their fires. In addition, farmers can earn more if they grow valuable crops such as cocoa, coffee and vanilla that can potentially be sold to a relatively well-paying European market – rather than having subsistence agriculture, where one only grows, for example, corn or the tuber plant cassava/cassava for own consumption . If they can earn more from the land they already have, there is less risk of the rainforest being cleared to create more space for maize farmers, explains Lybæk. – In terms of kroner and øre, you can earn much more if you convert just a bit of your agriculture to coffee or vanilla, he says. And since, for example, coffee and cocoa grow best in the shade, it’s not just about growing small coffee plants, but also bananas, papayas and larger trees. Then you go from a bare field to one that becomes green and lush. Not easy The challenge for farmers is that it is not easy to adapt. Firstly, it requires knowledge and very special agricultural techniques to become, for example, a vanilla or coffee farmer. Vanilla plants must be pollinated by hand, one flower at a time, coffee must be husked and dried and cocoa fermented in just the right way so that it can be sold on. Therefore, the project in Uganda is about teaching the farmers practical methods for growing and processing new crops and upgrading to quality products, says Lybæk. – But in fact it is everything outside the field that is the most complicated, he says. If the farmers are to get a fair price for their goods, it is necessary that they deal directly with the end user to a greater extent, so that there are as few intermediaries between the farmer and the coffee drinker as possible. The problem is that one farmer, with a field the size of half a hectare, cannot do it alone. The same applies if the agriculture is to be certified as organic or fair trade. – Therefore, much of the work around forest agriculture is about organizing cooperatives where perhaps 500 farmers come together to sell their goods. It requires communication, clear agreements and transparency so that no one feels cheated, explains Lybæk. It’s not just simple. It is a new way of working for many of the farmers, and the cooperatives are run simply – without computers, without precise forecasts of next year’s harvest, with members living scattered. But the organizational work is incredibly important, because without it all the farmer will not get a higher income. – If the farmers do not make money from forest agriculture, they will lack food because they have used agricultural land for trees and not crops they can eat, says Lybæk. And then the land must be cleared so they can grow corn again. Economic sustainability Both researchers, those who carry out the practical work and international organizations emphasize that forest agriculture cannot stop deforestation alone. But it is a tool that can give tree planting a boost, if it is adapted to local conditions so that it makes sense for the many small farmers to spend time and set aside soil for trees. If it is possible to get the farmers involved, then it is a method that can both help the climate, the forests and the farmers’ wallets and standard of living. Therefore, it is also a matter for Verdens Skove to spread the method as much as possible – they are also working to spread forest agriculture in Bolivia. In Uganda, they have also included forestry agriculture in the school curriculum at a number of small, technical schools so that other farmers can take short courses in, for example, vanilla pollination, harvesting techniques, coffee drying and so on. – It is also for agricultural workers who may not have land themselves, but who can now learn these value-creating methods and get a certificate for it. Then it can help them to spread the methods without having to clear the land for their own fields themselves, explains Lybæk. Whether it is farmers or agricultural workers, it must make economic sense for them to plant trees. Otherwise, poverty may force them to clear away more forest, he points out. – It can spread in a sustainable way if it puts food on the table, and if they can get a fairer share of the pie.



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