Carbon Sequestration Strategies in Agroforestry Systems

Agroforestry integrates trees with crops or livestock on the same land unit, offering a multifaceted approach to climate change mitigation by capturing atmospheric carbon and storing it in biomass and soils. Key strategies include incorporating alley-cropping arrangements, silvoarable combinations of trees and annual crops, and silvopastoral designs that merge woody perennials with pasture. These systems enhance soil structure, increase organic matter inputs through litter and root turnover, and create microclimatic conditions that slow decomposition rates. By diversifying plant architecture and rooting depths, agroforestry promotes deeper carbon storage and improves resilience to extreme weather. Practical applications span from temperate regions, where fruit or nut trees interplanted with cereals boost below-ground carbon stocks, to tropical parklands that sustain local livelihoods while accumulating significant biomass carbon. The global significance of these practices lies in their potential to deliver co-benefits for biodiversity, soil health and rural economies, making them a nature-based solution that aligns agricultural productivity with long-term carbon sequestration goals.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have demonstrated that temperate alley-cropping systems significantly improve ecosystem multifunctionality compared to open cropland and grassland, notably increasing soil carbon sequestration, habitat provision for soil biota and resistance to wind erosion, although nutrient management must be optimised to realise full greenhouse-gas abatement and water-regulation benefits. Large-scale analyses combining remote-sensing with carbon-stock modelling have revealed that trees on agricultural land account for over 75 percent of biomass carbon, amounting to more than 45 PgC globally, and that a modest increase in tree cover between 2000 and 2010 contributed an additional 2 PgC to global biomass carbon. These foundational insights underscore the need to integrate tree cover into national carbon accounting and to promote agroforestry as a scalable mitigation strategy.

Carbon Sequestration Strategies in Agroforestry Systems publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in carbon sequestration strategies in agroforestry systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Carbon sequestration: the process by which atmospheric carbon dioxide is captured and stored in vegetation, soils or biomass.

Soil organic carbon (SOC): the carbon component of soil organic matter, including decomposed plant and microbial residues.

Biomass carbon: the carbon stored in the living tissues of plants and trees.

Alley-cropping: an agroforestry practice where rows of trees or shrubs are interplanted with alleys of crops.

Silvoarable system: an integrated land use in which trees and arable crops coexist on the same field.

Silvopastoral system: an agroforestry arrangement combining trees with pasture, allowing livestock grazing under tree cover.

References

1. Multifunctionality of temperate alley-cropping agroforestry outperforms open cropland and grassland. Communications Earth & Environment (2023).
2. Global Tree Cover and Biomass Carbon on Agricultural Land: The contribution of agroforestry to global and national carbon budgets. Scientific Reports (2016).
3. Agroforestry enhances biological activity, diversity and soil‐based ecosystem functions in mountain agroecosystems of Latin America: A meta‐analysis. Global Change Biology (2023).
4. Co-benefits and trade-offs of agroforestry for climate change mitigation and other sustainability goals in West Africa. Global Ecology and Conservation (2020).
5. The transition from shifting cultivation to indigenous agroforestry as nature-based solution for land restoration in the Indian Eastern Himalayas. Ecological Indicators (2024).