Broadacre Holistic Agroforestry Implementation on a New England Farm: A Case Study and Manual

Commodities

• Agronomic: grass (misc. annual), grass (misc. perennial), hay
• Fruits: apples, apricots, berries (blueberries), berries (brambles), berries (other), cherries, peaches, pears, persimmon, plums, quinces
• Nuts: chestnuts, hazelnuts, walnuts
• Vegetables: asparagus, beets, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbages, cucurbits, greens (leafy), greens (lettuces), leeks, onions, peas (culinary), radishes (culinary)
• Additional Plants: ornamentals
• Animals: bovine, swine
• Animal Products: fiber, fur, leather, meat

Practices

• Animal Production: feed/forage, grazing management, grazing - rotational, livestock breeding, manure management, mineral supplements, pasture renovation, pasture fertility, rangeland/pasture management, stocking rate, stockpiled forages, winter forage
• Crop Production: agroforestry, alley cropping, biological inoculants, conservation tillage, cover crops, fertilizers, foliar feeding, intercropping, no-till, nutrient cycling, pollinator habitat, silvopasture, windbreaks
• Education and Training: demonstration, on-farm/ranch research
• Farm Business Management: agritourism, community-supported agriculture, farmers' markets/farm stands, land access, whole farm planning
• Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, carbon sequestration, hedgerows, hedges - woody, riparian buffers
• Pest Management: mulches - killed, mulches - living, mulching - vegetative
• Production Systems: agroecosystems, holistic management, integrated crop and livestock systems, permaculture
• Soil Management: composting, nutrient mineralization, organic matter, soil quality/health
• Sustainable Communities: community services, employment opportunities, local and regional food systems, new business opportunities, partnerships, public participation

The project’s focus is the creation of a detailed case study of a broadacre agroforestry installation on a working farm in Vermont. With an objective of helping to close the knowledge gap that creates a barrier to agroforestry adoption in the Northeast, the study will cover the design, site prep, financial planning and establishment costs, and initial seasons of alley cropping and silvopasture on the farm. It will include detailed information relevant to prospective agroforestry practitioners including species, establishment techniques, costs, labor inputs, and so on. The primary author is a professional science writer and agroforestry masters student; the secondary author, also an agroforestry graduate student, is an experienced project- and land manager. The partner farmer has a masters in agroforestry and longstanding agroforestry experience and is committed to transparency in all aspects of the project. The team will collaborate via site visits, detailed interviews, and document sharing; expert consultants will provide ongoing feedback and input and shape and edit the final document. Written in clear, accessible language, richly illustrated, and including helpful appendices, the study will be a free PDF downloadable by farmers wishing to learn more about how they might adopt agroforestry on their own farms. Outreach will include frequent posts on a new agroforestry website at the University of Vermont, dissemination through the Vermont Farm to Plate network and social media, newsletters, other partner organizations, as well as broad online distribution through state and national agroforestry networks.

This project seeks to create a detailed, clear, accessible case study and manual of broadacre agroforestry implementation on a working farm in the Northeast. The document will be made freely and publicly available via PDF and a limited number of free hard copies. 

A tentative outline follows, to be edited as the project develops with the input of our technical advisors:

1. Holistic context
   1. Bread and Butter Farm’s history, size, site, owners’ vision
   2. Surrounding community–consumers and farmers
   3. Ownership/tenure arrangement
   4. Vision for agroforestry on this farm
2. Decision-making process. Readers will be walked through factors the farmer took into account in order to design a complex large-scale agroforestry system. 
   1. Goals
   2. Site-related factors, including climate, soil, water 
   3. Financial and other resource-related factors, including equipment availability
   4. Challenges and resource concerns
3. Implementation
   1. Soil preparation
   2. Over 100,000 trees in 380 acres of silvopasture: design of triple rows, layout, spacing, orientation, etc.
   3. 2,300 trees in 20 acres in u-pick fruit alley cropping veg/flowers/hay
   4. Establishment techniques, including mulch and compost
   5. Coppice
   6. Water management & irrigation
   7. Plant lists
   8. Plant sources
   9. Technical assistance
   10. Cost, fuel, and labor hours, measured with the help of GPS
4. Financials
   1. Budget
   2. Labor and financial inputs
   3. Programs used (e.g., grantmaking entities)
   4. Farmstand/CSA income
   5. Timeline through 20 years
   6. Other income sources, including [cooperative arrangement? generational wealth?]
5. Marketing
   1. Strategies
   2. Programs used
   3. Consumer interest/uptake
6. Visuals. These are not only useful and interesting but are also key to enhancing accessibility for a variety of audiences.
   1. Simple map of the farm
   2. Visual design maps from the Propagate software Overyield. Various scales & levels of detail, down to species/varieties, spacing within and between rows
   3. Map layers: soil, water, access, trails and human traffic, equipment traffic
   4. Species diagram of the multistory alleys
   5. Soil profile/vertical horizon illustration showing soil volume from agroforestry management
   6. Landscape illustrations of what a visitor would see
   7. Economic charts