There are many definitions, aims and potentials of agroforestry. One of the definitions, increasingly used by ICRAF publications and achieving wide acceptability is:
“Agroforestry is a collective name for land-use systems and technologies where woody perennials (trees, shrubs, palms, bamboos, etc.) are deliberately used on the same land-management units as agricultural crops and/or animals, in some form of spatial arrangement or temporal sequence. In agroforestry systems there are both ecological and economical interactions between the different components.”
This definition implies that:
- agroforestry normally involves two or more species of plants (or plants and animals), at least one of which is a woody perennial;
- an agroforestry system always has two or more outputs;
- the cycle of an agroforestry system is always more than one year; and
- even the simplest agroforestry system is more complex, ecologically (structurally and functionally) and economically, than a monocropping system.
Agroforestry can be applied to all agricultural systems, in all parts of Europe. Agroforestry systems are obtained by planting trees on agricultural land or introducing agriculture in existing woodland (e.g., silvopasture). Europe has a unique heritage of traditional agroforestry systems with a high environmental and cultural value and high potential for innovative modern agroforestry systems developed by research centres across Europe during the last two decades.
Existing research indicates that appropriate application of agroforestry principles and practices are a key avenue to help the European Union to achieve more sustainable methods of food and fibre production that produce both profits for farmers and environmental benefits.
Agroforestry practices have been overlooked by previous CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) schemes, resulting in billions of trees being destroyed across Europe. Recently incentives for establishing agroforestry plots have been introduced and in the new CAP agroforestry will receive support through Pillar II. Article 23 of the new Rural Development Regulation 1305/2013 is devoted to the establishment of agroforestry systems and it now depends on Members States and regions to use this article to adopt agroforestry measures in their Rural Development Programmes.

