Agroforestry News

For more than a century, the natural cycles of the Cerrado grasslands have guided the lives of the farmers and cowboys in the deep west of Brazil’s Bahia state. Residents…

In a failed state, environmental NGOs endure restrictive government policies; shortages of cash, personnel, water and other resources — surviving via creative monetary policies, volunteerism, and sheer grit.

It was late afternoon deep in the dry season in Fatikh, a village in the Sahel region of Senegal. Out on his farm, El Hadj Ndiaye, a distinguished gentleman in…

MINEIROS/GANDÚ, Brazil — Behind the wheel of his black suburban van, Paulo Borges has to squint to focus on the SUV motorcade in front of him, vanishing in a red…

In the latter part of 2016, Ethan Steinberg and two of his friends planned a driving tour across the U.S. to interview farmers. Their goal was to solve a riddle…

In December 2019, sitting on the wooden patio of his hilltop cabin, the Amazonian forest buzzing in the background, Rodrigo Trujillo reflects on his 25 years growing coca, the raw…

MONTPELLIER, France — As the world warms due to climate change, winemakers are struggling to maintain the quality of their product. But in the home of wine, agroforestry researchers are…

Dean Cycon spoke recently to students at Harvard Business School. A student asked him what his profit margin was at Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee, a company he founded in 1993…

Epidemiologists know that wildlife disappearance facilitates epidemics that affect humanity. This is, for example, what French scientist Serge Morand, states, "The number of epidemics is increasing due to the loss…

The need to conserve and protect global forests is clear and urgent. Indigenous populations like the Amazonian Kichwa have recognized the need for action to prevent the worst effects of…

Life can’t function without insects. At least, not for long. Dutifully, they pollinate, break down waste, cycle nutrients, move seeds, and touch every web of life, filling endless functional niches…

LOS ASIENTOS, Panama — It was auction day in the town of Santiago, and ranchers from the region gathered to buy and sell cattle. A metallic clatter rang out from…

Eating chocolate shouldn’t mean fueling environmental and social destruction. But, as a stream of news stories and reports make abundantly clear, too often it does. Cocoa production in Ghana and Ivory Coast – the world’s biggest cocoa producers…

BENGUET, Philippines — Every day, at least 1,500 metric tons of semi-temperate vegetables are trucked down from Benguet, a mountainous province in the northern Philippines, to depots called bagsakan in…

A comment piece published in Nature yesterday urges tropical countries to adopt a tax on carbon emissions in order to halt global warming, species loss, and deforestation. The authors of…

Tech giant Microsoft says it will go “carbon negative” by 2030; to get there, it will rely on Pachama, a startup using LIDAR and artificial intelligence to truthfully track forest carbon storage projects.

DESULO, Italy — In a late 1990s photo, a little girl with a ponytail and white apron poses at the corner of a cheese-making machine. Two decades later, with the…

RANOMAFANA and ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — While many U.S. travelers dream of the fabled forests of Madagascar, for Malagasy conservationist Mahandry Hugues Andrianarisoa, 28, it was the verdant landscape of upstate…

Appalachia is home to some of the most biodiverse temperate forests in the world, and it has a deep history of harvesting species like American ginseng for personal use and…

Amid a deluge of news during the U.N. Climate Summit last month, one major announcement went largely uncovered, yet is among the most important initiatives aimed at reducing the effects…

TENGGULUN, Indonesia — Around 20 Acehnese men sit cross-legged while smoking clove cigarettes on the terrace of a simple wooden building in this village on the island of Sumatra. The…

Since as far back as the early 1990s, Thailand has been the world’s largest exporter of natural rubber, responsible for as much as 35.1 percent of rubber exports in 2016.…

Agroforestry, or forest gardening, is the practice of growing of trees, shrubs, herbs, and vegetables together in a group mimicking a forest, or within an existing forest, with each plant…

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Coffee is one of Vietnam’s most important agricultural products, a crop that grows so well in the country’s Central Highlands that it has become…

Day two of the World Agroforestry Congress was in full swing today as the 1,200 plus attendees streamed into workshops and swirled among some 600+ posters hanging in the halls…

Dean Cycon is an environmental and indigenous rights lawyer by training who's been involved in community development since 1976. He founded or co-founded numerous international development groups, including Coffee Kids…

In Niger, where agriculture is the main source of income, the message is simple: Losing your soil means losing your livelihood. The ability to grow food is inextricably linked to…

To many in North America, the sound of birds among the early spring trees is the sound of renewal: after a long, cold winter, the colorful warblers and vocal thrushes…

Natural forests are 40 times more effective than plantations for storing carbon, making them the best option for slowing the global average temperature rise, a group of scientists says. Forests…

Bats are a weird and wonderful branch of the tree of life. The only mammals that can truly fly, and the group that has developed echolocation or "seeing with sound"…