FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS AND PRACTICES OF AGROFORESTRY: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

Climate change is a major threat to the world, and one of its drivers is intensive agriculture and the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides, which leads to soil degradation. Deforestation, which increases greenhouse gas emissions and reduces stored carbon, also contributes to the problem. This problem is leading to interest in sustainable agricultural methods, one of which is agroforestry. In Lithuania, this topic has not been widely studied and there is very little systematic synthesis of information compared to foreign scientific works. Therefore, it is necessary to start the systematization of information, which will reveal the concept of agroforestry, its characteristics and the types of practices used. In this paper, an analysis and synthesis of the scientific literature has been carried out according to thematic relevance. The concept of agroforestry has a basic principle in different sources, namely the cultivation of perennial woody plants on the same agricultural land with crops and/or livestock. The main characteristics of the system are more than two results and a duration of more than two years. Agroforestry has a positive impact on soil and biodiversity. According to the nature of its components, agroforestry practices are classified as silvopastoral, agrosilvopastoral and agrosilvopastoral systems.